To the right is a small snapshot taken of the site (originally to illustrate PNG image rendering issues I was facing in IE6), which gives you a feel for the new color scheme.  Basically "brown", apparently.  Woo-hoo.

The new site will be using about 10 -15 plugins already being used in other WP sites I own, plus a bunchthat are new to me, including MyBlogLog, ShareThis, Relish Comments, Sphere, and more.  Hopefully, nothing will expode.

Huge thanks go to Scott, Taylor, Ryan, Eric, and Tara for both moral and technical support.  (Especially on Saturday, when I thought the world was falling.  Long story short, unbeknowest to me, my router's fire wall suddenly started blocking all access to my web hosting account.  Yeesh.)  Everything is more easily surmountable with friends around.

Oh, and my next song is 98% finished; it's been on standby until this puppy is finished.  ...Actually, I've not yet decided whether to launch the site, then the song, or both simultaneously...

What do you think?  Let both loose into the world simultaneously, or do more of a one-two punch?

It only launched in June, but there are already a few cool tutorials such as "Create a Reverse Reverb Effect", which is one I've actually wondered about in the past.  Check it out.

Btw, you can also submit a tutorial of your own and score $150 (assuming it's accepted).  Rockstar Sites apparently has a model that's working for them -- pay the massive public to create great content, do some PR, and sell advertising to monetize the incoming traffic.  Commercialized crowdsourcing....well, not really, since it's selective.  Not too shabby.  I can't complain about commercialism as long as the content is solid, and so far, it's off to a good start.  :)

The biggest challenges (to me, anyway), are moving all my content, posts, pages, images, links, feeds, etc over to the new platform without breaking anything. But Scott Andrew and Taylor Davidson seem to think that's the easy part.  I'll also need to either pick a free theme, or have one custom built.  Of course, that requires a wallet with actual money in it, so hm.  But something are some amazing designers out there that I know could knock my socks off.  We'll see.

I've already launched several microsites using WP, and am pretty happy with it.   (One actually made over $1000 over a couple months...crazy!)  It's the whole I-don't-want-to-break-GarageSpin that scares me.

WellMixed is a company on the verge of launching an internet-based mastering service catering to bands with GarageSpin (or ProTools) song projects looking to achieve a professional sound for their music.  Not a bad idea considering the huge number of Mac users that have GarageBand, but not much else.  (A Cakewalk user, for example, is probably more invested in the equipment, etc., but GarageBand is included free on Macs.)  But...not that I'm one to talk..but hopefully they'll whip together a better logo...

I'm sure this is only the beginning...keep an eye out for more.  (Thanks, Taylor) 

For kicks, I even tried my own interim band name, DreamSpin, and my song "Spinning Daydream" showed up.  How?  I'm not sure, but i'm assuming they're somehow cataloging all bands that have some kind of social network presence.  Whatever their method, it's clearly very deep if they've even indexed bands with only one song in the market..!

But here's the latest brilliance: Songza has launched a Band Self-Promotion Beta Program where bands can promote their own music by having it featured in the "Recommended" section of Songza's search engine results.  Though it's in beta now, Songza is opening doors to do what Google already does -- charge bands (i.e. advertisers) to target relevant audiences by making their music appear when related music is searched for.

It might work like this -- you (the band/label) create an account with Songza.  Your band sounds like Coldplay and Keane.  So, you bid some amount per click/display/play/purchase/share, perhaps $0.01/$0.10/whatever, to have your song recommended when someone searches for a Coldplay song. It's good for bands/labels, 'cause it's a relevant, targeted audience.

Google makes 90%+ of its revenue from search engine advertising.  Songza could move towards that model, and could eventually launch an advertising platform similar to Google's Adsense program, which enables ads to appear on other websites via contextually-driven widgets.  Perhaps we'll see them on Last.fm, Jigg.com, Hype Machine, or GarageSpin some day.

Definitely keep an eye on Songza, it may be one of the few online music startups that has a viable business model in the works.  AND, it could become a great channel through which to promote your music.  Be sure to sign up for the beta and try it out. 

(Thanks, Taylor)

Though the plot may seem overly geeky, the movie felt like Rocky I.  If you've ever been any kind of gamer in your lifetime, you'll appreciate it, and may even love it as I did.

It made me want to whip out the ol' Intellivision and wreak havoc on Tron Deadly Disks, Snafu, and Utopia.  Excuse me while I go search for a few emulators...

'Hope you had a great long weekend -- cheers.  Thanks, Eric.

Kinda interesting.  There are a lot of "free sound banks" and "collaborative song writing" sites around, this is sort of a spin off those concepts.  (Think Free Sound Project, Kompoz, SoundSnap, Splice, etc.)  Good stuff...

(via Taylor via ReadWriteWeb)

Napster recently launched a DRM-free MP3 store to join the likes of Amazon, Zune, Real, and Yahoo.  It claims to have 50% more music than any of those stores, but I'm not sure it'll beat 'em.

HypeBot interviewed Napster COO Christopher Allen about the store's opening, in case you're interested.  Me, I'll probably stick with Amazon for now.

It's a foam dart launcher with a web cam -- you plug it into your PC's USB slot, aim the rocket launcher using your computer and webcam display, and fire up to a 6 meter range.

I dare my wife to try to tell me to wash the dishes when I'm in the middle of recording a vocal track...

Unfortunately, trackbacks don't appear on GarageSpin...nor do trackbacks appear in other blogs when I post about them.  Whassup? 

I recently realized there's been a decent amount of commenting by fellow music lovers...apologies to anyone that never got a "shout out" from me.  It clearly needs to be fixed for GarageSpin to be a true blogosphere participant...!  Are there any common Movable Type trackback bugs that anyone is aware of?

An Abbreviated History of my DAW Trials and Tribulations:

• December 2007: After too many crapouts on my 5-year old Dell with Sonar 6 over the course of a year, I upgraded to a new DAW customized for audio production. 
• Jan-Feb 2008It was fast, mean and deadly...but unfortunatley, it was still experiencing crazy dropouts (despite an increase in performance).
• March 2008: In an effort to identify the cause of the problem, we installed the Sonar Producer 7 Trial and Reaper to run some tests.
• March 2008: Strangely enough, Sonar 7 and Reaper both worked perfectly fine.  Even more odd, so did Sonar 6...that is, as long as I ran Sonar 7 just before running Sonar 6.  Otherwise, it hobbled along just as much as always.
• April 2008: Then, the Sonar 7 trial expired.  And my file was labeled "corrupt" by Sonar 6.  (Most likely, some part of the S7 Trial had taken root in the S6 installation, then failed once the trial ended, "bruising" my project file.  Or something.)
• April 28, 2008: I upgraded to Sonar 7 last week, and installed it cleanly tonight (with help from Jim at Purrrfect Audio).  Voila, not only does my "corrupt" song project now work, but I didn't experience a SINGLE dropout after playing around for an hour.  Absolutely and completely AWESOME.

So far, so good!  Finally, back to recording audio...it's time to finish this song already...