September 2010
0 posts
Break the stage
by Adam Steele
In my old college band, we had this one fraternity that we used to play at every few weeks. You know how some bands have a regular gig at a local bar? Well, we were all under 21 at the time and with unbending underage laws at our small collegetown bars, a semi regular frat show was the closest thing we could get. But frat shows have their advantages sometimes. Anyway, this...
August 2010
2 posts
Commenting is here
Anyone can now add comments to any song version. All you need is a free account.
July 2010
4 posts
Huge thanks to Deborah Henson-Conant for her...
We received some incredible feedback recently from Deborah Henson-Conant and it led to a redesign of the fan info page and the artist info page, as well as the addition of an FAQ page.
A huge thanks to Deborah who happens to be the best electric harp player we’ve ever seen. Her music is really worth a listen: hipharp.com
Keep the feedback coming!
New features update
We’ve been working hard to improve merge.fm based on your feedback. Here’s what’s new.
We’ve received a lot of requests for a delete song feature, so we built it sooner than we were planning. If you’re an artist, just mouse over one of your songs and hit the red x in the upper right to delete it.
Letting musicians download their tracks was another one that was...
4 tags
Shortening gig setup times on the cheap
By Dan Willis
“Squeak,” “pshhh,” “ewa-ewa,” ah, the sound of brand new tupperware in the morning. One of the most un-commonly thought of products when thinking about music, but none-the-less it is one of the most important objects for gigging on the cheap.
When my band first began playing around Pennsylvania with all of our own sound equipment, it… was… chaos. Although the show only lasted from...
3 tags
#3 - Music Marketing Tip Three
By Dan Willis
Close your eyes, count down from ten and let me take you back… Back to the time before apple’s meteoric rise back to prominence, before the iPhone, before the iPod, before MP3 was a common turn of phrase. Back to Walkman’s, stereo systems, CDs, tape decks and desktops with a whopping 1GB of disk space.
Now you’re hanging out with your friends in your room. You have a three-piece...
June 2010
6 posts
New merge.fm features
Well, it’s been 2 weeks since launch and we have some new features to let you know about.
Each artist now has a free preview song that is open to the public to give people a chance to try it out. Look for this indicator on the preview songs:
Artists can now see how many subscribers they have when logged in on their artist page.
We’ve revamped the landing page and video, as well...
Talking to a live crowd is tough
by Adam Steele
During the first show we ever played in the first band I was ever in, we said almost nothing to the crowd between songs and it was awkward silence out the rear. Second, third and fourth show…pretty much the same thing if not worse. After we’d had enough of embarrassing ourselves, we started trying your classic things like “how’s everybody doing?”
...
Gladys...NOOOOO!
By Dan Willis
The crowd is swaying to your music in perfect sync with the movement of your beet red plectrum across the strings; the lights are flashing across your eyelids enhancing your buzz; the humidity inside the room has grown tropical; you’re in the groove and nothing can stop you from performing at your peak…when out of nowhere you’re strumming air. The weight from your...
merge.fm is live
Today, we turned the key and took merge.fm live! We wanted to get this out as soon as possible, so it may be a little rough around the edges. But we are making improvements, adding new features, and bringing on new bands and artists almost daily.
We would also like to give a huge thank you to all the bands, musicians, and music fans who tested out the site, as well as all the other people who...
3 tags
Figuring out the subs
by Dan Willis
Back in college at Penn State, we had a band called Wits End. If you’ve ever been to central PA before, you know that it’s pretty rural and not the best indie music scene around. With strict as hell liquor laws and having to be 21 in order to get a gig at the bars (as the baby of the band I was only 18) we had to suck it up and do 3 hour sets of covers at the frats, and then work in...
3 tags
#2 - Music Marketing Tip TWO
by Dan Willis
Set up a merchandise table at your shows!
Come on, this is just a straight up no-brainer, and if you don’t have any merch to sell, then make some. There are tons of ways to not only make the stuff, but even different ways to sell it… In fact, you can now scan credit cards into your handy iPhone or iPad with Squareup (https://squareup.com/).
All right, I think I’m done...
May 2010
3 posts
Beta Launch to Bands and Musicians
Merge.fm went into private beta to music artists the other week, and we wanted to give more artists a chance to get a sneak peek before our public launch.
Who we’re looking for
We’re working with a dozen artists local to us, and this early in the beta we can’t take on a whole lot more. So we really need people who are going to be active and really use the app.
There are some...
3 tags
#1 - That's One Music Marketing Tip in the...
huh?
by Dan Willis
Give away your music for… FREE! WHAT?!?!?
So you’ve been playing around town for a while and you’ve saved up enough money to drop it all on a studio session. You spend the next couple of weeks in and out of the studio recording your standard 13 song album. So now, after months of playing shows to save up for studio time and spending all that money and time recording...
WatchHow to get the “wall of guitars” sound
April 2010
1 post
Merge.fm Sponsoring Pygmalion Music Festival
The Pygmalion Music Festival has to be one of the best local music events in Champaign-Urbana and we’re fired up to be one of the sponsors this year. We’ll be at all the pre-festival events and obviously we’ll be there for the big one Sept 22-25. If you’re in the area and love indie music, it can’t be missed.
March 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Hacking Moo's Mini Cards for the Whole Team
will leinweber
I’ve been a big fan of moo and their mini cards for some time, and use them for my personal contact card. So when it was time to get cards for merge.fm, I wanted more mini cards.
They let you print a different design on the front of each card, if you want to. If you upload less pictures for the front, they’ll just start repeating designs until you hit however many...
2 tags
WatchDigital audio recording is something that is now a lot cheaper and easier. It doesn’t take a top of the line studio anymore to record professional sounding music. Here are 3 easy ways to make your vocal recordings sound better.
2 tags
first look at our new logo
will leinweber
We just got a new logo designed for us over at 99designs.com. I must say I was blown away at the quality of all the submissions. It was tough settling on just one logo!
The designer also included desktop version, and you should probably use it as your computer’s background right now. I am!
2 tags
Quick guide to big sound — multi mic it
by Adam Steele
Forget expensive recording microphones and fancy studios; anyone can get a huge sounding instrument recording. With the same setup as I described in the last post for a few hundred bucks, here’s how to get that huge professional sound. In this example, I’ll use an acoustic guitar, but the same applies to any acoustic instrument (violins, drums, horns, etc).
Setup
...
February 2010
3 posts
2 tags
Recording great sounding song ideas
by Adam Steele
Recording your song ideas has become easier and more affordable than ever in the past few years. With a few hundred bucks, you can make awesome sounding, studio quality recordings…the only other thing you need is a good ear (which actually is the most important thing…but to keep these short and too the point, one thing at a time). So keeping this as short as I can,...
2 tags
5 Social Media Tips for Indie Musicians →
I remember the first band I was ever in. We applied tip number 3 by being the loudest. But, none of these other things ever occurred to us. Given, we were still in high school, never could think of a good band name, and we didn’t use social media at all really, except for a crappy website. There are so many things out there now to help indie bands get their music out, track all kinds of...
