EQ, Copyright and Music Promotion

It’s a three-in-one Friday post today, which includes some tips on using your equaliser more effectively, copyright information for webmasters and a highly convenient eBook-format download of selected PodPosts on the subject of music promotion and sales…

The Fundamentals (and harmonics) of EQ

First off, when you’re equalising a mix it’s very important to know where the fundamentals and harmonics are on any channel you’re treating. Because the harmonics of a musical signal occur at frequency multiples of the fundamental, any change you make to the fundamental will have follow-on effects on these higher freqencies as well. For example, in Ireland and the UK the mains voltage operates at 50Hz, which often gets into the signal chain and creates a noticable buzz or hum. You can use a notch filter to cut out the signal in this frequency (reduce gain with a narrow Q setting). If you find that a single EQ unit doesn’t reduce the signal enough, you can double up with another EQ in the same range deepen the cut. That may take care of the fundamental, but you might also want to cut at 100Hz, 150Hz and 200Hz to remove all traces of that unwanted buzz.

A really useful article on equalisation can be found at Sound On Sound, which is definitely one for the bookmark folder.

Copyright for Webmasters

Although new artists may be well advised to distribute their music as freely as possible, there are still many potential copyright and trademark pitfalls to avoid for anyone who has content on the Internet which they would like to protect. This article over at SEOmoz provides some good information on this area, although it is more directly relevant to websites and text content.

Music Sales and Promotion Report

This is a compilation of articles and posts from the PodBlog which relate to the area of music promotion and distribution in the Web 2.0 era. Subscribers to the newsletter have received this already, but you can now download the PDF file here to read at your leisure:

Podcomplex Music Promotion Vol 1