In the mood for promotion, I thought I'd give internet radio stations a looksee. The first one I ran into, AccuRadio, allows you to upload music if it was commercially released. First, though, you have to register with SoundExchange. I did that, and man, it took forever! I then emailed Accuradio for their upload link. If they approve my request, I'll submit Celestial Hopes even though I'm not the record company. If that's an issue, I'll limit AccuRadio to the ambient music I release through RouteNote. Either way, the promotion train keeps chugging along.
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For the better part of thirty years, on and off, I've performed live on stage with my guitar strung around my neck. There were a few instances where I played keyboards, but by and large, it was always a strat. Now, the possibility of performing live with turntables, like a lot of ambient artists do, seems weird. If I want to get with the program, I suppose I have to do the same thing - shlep out there with digital turntables like a DJ. To be fair, some of the artists I admire (Martin Sturtzer, Steve Roach, Tangerine Dream, etc) do drag thousands of dollars' worth of synths out on stage. Since I'm as poor as a church mouse, I guess I'll do the Carbon Based Lifeforms thing and go out there with a Pioneer deck, my laptop, a mixer, and maybe my Nektar controller. That should work, I hope.
I suppose I can't complain. Not much to report. My work on Astrologicus continues. I've been thinking about buying a digital mixer and a desktop synth like a Roland SH-32 to prepare myself for live shows - if I go that route, that is. But am I ready to end my reclusive life? Something to ponder.
So, yeah, that's something to celebrate. Too bad I don't drink anymore otherwise it'd call for a toast or two of champagne. The album is Habitable Moons. In case you're curious, scientists have outlined several moons in our galaxy where human life has a possibility of survival. I suppose these trials are expected. The many hats I wear include songwriter, musician, engineer, producer, mixer, and promoter. The promotion stuff, I must admit, is easier now than it was 20/30 years ago. back then, you had to shlep your behind to the post office with stacks of packaged demos. Or, if you were in a big city, go knock on several doors till one of them opened. Thanks to the digital age, you can go online and promote to your heart's content. Of course, free promotion only gets you so much. Paid promotion, however, is where the magic happens. I don't have the funds for that kind of enterprise at the moment, but should I hit the lottery, I'll start promoting my works big time. The first single out the gate is Aquarius.
i registered with Digital DJ Pool earlier this week and just uploaded my first track, Aquarius. It's the first song from my upcoming psychill/uptempo/chillgressive album Astrologicus. I have to hit up the food bank later. When I come back, I'll either work on my writing, music, or watch football replays on the internet.
I joined Jamendo today, but I must admit, music licensing is a new avenue for me. There's so much to learn. Music licensing sites allow you non-exclusive rights, meaning you can place your music in several different platforms. Seizing the opportunity, I registered five tracks, some of which already appear on Jamendo, to PremiumBeat, Shutterstock's music licensing arm. Now, I just found out I can make more money at Jamendo if I give them exclusive rights to my songs. I'm waiting to hear back from PremiumBeat if they accepted the five tracks I'd sent in. I'm leaning towards PremiumBeat because Shutterstock's a popular licensing site. Interestingly, PremiumBeat only wanted five tracks and MP3's to boot. Jamendo seems to be unlimited and requires WAV files. All food for thought.
Jamendo is a music licensing site. I wasn't aware of music licensing till I got a tip today. I'll utilize it for my ambient singles. So far, I've put five songs there. Eventually, I'd like to get the rest of my singles there as well. Hopefully, it all works out. (Isn't the music biz a fickle industry?!)
Music distributor RouteNote approved my album, The Dream Merchant, and will be releasing it to stores in two weeks. That's good news. There's some weirdness attached to it, though. RouteNote can't place it on YouTube Music, Facebook Music, TikTok, and Instagram because Content ID was blocked for release. According to their criteria, they don't accept ambient in those stores. Why? I don't have a clue. I'd like to drop one album/month, so next month I'll try to get distribution for Habitable Moons and, in December, Ambient Abstractions. By then, I should be finished with the album I'm currently working on.
I promised myself I'd compose a Berlin School-type track, so that's exactly what I did this week. I put on Bandcamp a few minutes ago. I've been negligent, though. I started working on a short story called Little Hammer last week, but I took a detour to work on my upcoming chillgressive/psychill/downtempo album, Astrologicus. I've also been toying with calling it Celestial Dances, or something like that, since it's basically a downtempo dance album. We'll see.
It's interesting to find myself, at this later stage, still writing poems, short stories and music. I suppose whatever keeps me off the streets, right?
Herein is the site of author Robin Ray and his electronic musician doppelganger, Robinicus. The former is a writer of poems, short stories, novels, screenplays and non-fiction. The latter has been known to wield the odd guitar in rock, ska and reggae bands here and there, as well as force his keyboards and VSTi's to do his bidding in the creation of ambient, psychill, downtempo, psybient and related chill/psychedelic genres.
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Robinicus/Robin RayIs a musician, poet, and author from the Pacific Northwest of the US. Archives
February 2023
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