Performer Magazine: April/May 2021

THE MUSICIAN ’S RESO URCE

APRIL/MAY ‘21 FREE

HOW TO

Save Money with Key Pre-Production Tips Prepare for Future Sync Opportunities Maximize Your Digital Royalties

THAO NGUYEN

On the pandemic’s impact on the music industry: “Pretty much everything is out the window, and that means everything is on the table.”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME 31, ISSUE 2

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

24 THAO NGUYEN

16 81355

by Tony Eubank

20

by Sarah Brooks

BARTEES STRANGE

by Jason Peterson

30

DEVON

by Benjamin Ricci

DEPARTMENTS 4. LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 5. Mastering a Hybrid Approach to Live Music 6. Advice for Emerging Artists on Finding Great Songs 8. Pro Tips for Pre-Production 10. How to Prepare for Future Sync Opps

34

GARY NUMAN

by Lesley Daunt

12. How to Maximize Digital Mechanical Royalties 14. Lyric House’s Approach to A&R for Sync 38. GEAR REVIEWS: PRS, Sennheiser, Shure, Taylor Guitars and more…

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 3

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Volume 31, Issue 2 PO BOX 348 Somerville, MA 02143

LETTER J

ust as we mourned the loss of Chick Corea last month, this month brings yet another tragic loss for the music community. Sadly, we said goodbye to DMX shortly before press time, after the rapper spent several days in critical condition.

It’s hard to overestimate the influence and magnetism DMX had during his time on top. No one spit as hard as him, with as much grit, with a seemingly endless supply of absolute banger beats.

X had his fair share of personal ups and downs, but his music will continue to inspire artists around the world. I can vividly remember the opening measures of “Party Up” being on an endless loop in my college dorm, both as a song blasting from cheap computer speakers (this was 20 years ago, after all) as well as from equally cheap VCRs blasting Dave Chappelle’s HBO special “Killing Them Softly” from just about every room on the floor (we kept our doors open back then, nearly all the time).

from the editor

If you didn’t know the CD or the comedy special when you entered school that year, you could quote both verbatim by the time you left for summer break at the end of the year. That’s for sure.

X’s music still reminds me the friends, parties and fond memories I made in my younger days, and I’ll cherish that for many years to come.

I wish I had more eloquent words to say, but the hits just keep on coming this year. Hopefully our next issue will open on a brighter tune. But for now, it’s time to party up, you ruff ryders.

Benjamin Ricci

ABOUT US / Performer Magazine, a nationally distributed musician’s trade publication, focuses on independent musicians, those unsigned and on small labels, and their success in a DIY environment. We’re dedicated to promoting lesser-known talent and being the first to introduce you to artists you should know about.

MUSIC SUBMISSIONS / We listen to everything that comes into the office. We prefer physical CDs, cassettes and vinyl over downloads. If you do not have a physical copy, send download links to editorial@performermag.com. No attachments, please.

Send CDs to: Performer Magazine, Attn: Reviews, PO BOX 348, Somerville, MA 02143 CORRECTIONS / Did we make a heinous blunder, factual error or just spell your name wrong? Contact editorial@ performermag.com and let us know, cuz we’re big enough to say, “Baby, I was wrong.”

EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS / In the words of our esteemed forefathers at CREEM: “NOBODY WHO WRITES FOR THIS RAG’S GOT ANYTHING YOU AIN’T GOT, at least in the way of credentials. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be sending us your stuff: reviews, features, photos, recording tips, DIY advice or whatever else you have in mind that might be interesting to our readers: independent and DIY musicians. Who else do ya know who’ll publish you? We really will...ask any of our dozens of satisfied customers. Just bop it along to us to editorial@performermag.com and see what comes back your way. If you have eyes to be in print, this just might be the place. Whaddya got to lose? Whaddya got?”

4 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

CONTACT Phone: 617-627-9200 Fax: 617-627-9930 PUBLISHER William House Phone: 617-627-9919 bill@performermag.com EDITOR Benjamin Ricci ben@performermag.com DESIGN & ART DIRECTION Cristian Iancu EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Bob Dobalina editorial@performermag.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Benjamin Ricci, Chris Devine, Cestjon McFarland, Jason Peterson, Jessica Cole, Patrick Clancy, John Cesario, Lesley Daunt, Mary Kay Huse, Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato, Ellen Truly, Sarah Brooks, Tony Eubank CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Anna Powell-Denton, Julia Leiby, Brianna Bornstein, Christian Orellana, Kiley Schlappich, Chris Corner ADVERTISING SALES William House Phone: 617-627-9919 bill@performermag.com © 2021 by Performer Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any method whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.

The magazine accepts no responsibility for unsolicited recordings, manuscripts, artwork or photographs and will not return such materials unless requested and accompanied by a SASE. Annual Subscription Rate is $30 in the U.S.; $45 outside the U.S.

MUSIC BUSINESS

MASTERING A HYBRID APPROACH TO LIVE MUSIC Livestream opens you up to new audiences, even when in-person concerts return

L

Mary Kay Huse

et’s start with the obvious -- the pandemic put a huge damper on the entire music industry, leaving you itching to get back to the stage and back to fans. But even in the face of endless challenges, the music business has made massive strides. New livestream technologies and fan engagement strategies have helped to sustain the bond between artist and fan, even in the absence of in-person events. The shitstorm is ending, but what’s next for live music?

Livestream gives you new ways to connect with fans.

Because livestream has evolved beyond the “one-way” watch experience, artists and venues can now connect with fans in ways never before possible in person. Miss interacting with your fans before, during, and after the show? Host (and charge for) a VIP meet + greet experience or engage with fans in the chat rooms between sets. Want your shows to be social experiences?

Encourage fans to host watch parties, from the comfort of their couch, inviting friends to join them for your next show.

Fans demand, and get, even more access with digital engagement.

Livestreams removes geographical limitations for fans in cities off the tour stop, but it also allows for exclusive access. Access to behindthe-scenes footage, and previews of songs and sets before the concert even starts. Access to candid conversations with the artists, and even access to additional concert footage made available for purchase after the show.

Adopt a more dynamic digital strategy.

With hybrid being the new normal, we can expect to see even more artists adopting and leveraging

photo by Johnny Silvercloud

Join fans in embracing the digital shift.

Livestream adoption is happening quickly and broadly, with research showing 88% of live music fans having watched a livestream performance in 2020, even though the majority had never seen one pre-pandemic. Even more eye opening perhaps is the continued demand for livestream, even after in-person everything resumes. Survey data shows that 91% of fans said they’re still likely to watch a livestream in addition to going back to in-person shows and music festivals.

a dynamic digital strategy. Want to attract new fans? Use the data from the platform to profile and segment key audiences, and then target new fans with lookalike capabilities.

to completely new global or concert-challenged audiences.

Want to better serve your most loyal fans? Use livestream insights to better understand who your fans are and what they really want. Tour schedules, songs, merchandise can all be tailored to what fans are already doing. You can integrate the digital data into your in-person shows, maximizing your reach. With the data livestream platforms provide, we can understand the nittygritty details such as who attended the show, when they showed up, what artists they spent the most time with and more.

Be open to the change.

There is massive market potential for livestreaming, and the market for virtual concerts and hybrid shows is expected to grow exponentially as live music fans continue to demand access and additional viewing options. For many artists and venues (even festivals), a hybrid approach is a no brainer. Why? Because without livestream, artists and venues are missing a huge opportunity to connect with fans and to make money. Plus, livestream keeps you relevant, content-rich, and income generating, regardless of the time period or the current landscape.

A hybrid approach opens you up to new revenue streams.

While free was fun for a while, we all need to make a profit if we’re to keep the lights on and the music alive. Want to maximize show revenue?

Livestream allows artists to up the ante with custom merch, ticket bundles and other add-on experiences. Not to mention opening shows up

Things are going to look a little different moving forward, but a digital strategy is here to stay.

Expand your reach. Offer your fans the access they want. Increase your revenue potential, on or off tour. I’ve seen friends and family go from passive music fans to livestream enthusiasts, a phenomenon that creates an entirely new and incremental fan base for so many artists.

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 5

MUSIC BUSINESS

S

ometimes, let’s face it: You don’t write the songs.

session with a promising singer. Someone else may have already nailed it for you.

That’s okay; you’re in good company.

Even artists who’ve won industry awards for their songs don’t always write all their own material. The myth of the visionary songwriter sitting alone and distilling human emotions into melodies and lines is just that. Don’t let your repertoire woes stop you from being the best performer, producer, or musical force you can be.

So that leads us to the big question: What should you look for in a song? The first part of the answer is one that’s written by an ace songwriter. But that only begs the next question: how do you find one?

These are just a few of the many, but here are some reasons you may need to find a song you didn’t write: A cover won’t do. Sometimes covers are just the right thing for your career. Sometimes they feel cheesy, lame, or just wrong for that moment. You may want more control or to explore new musical territory, something that won’t always work with a cover.

You’re writing good songs but can’t write fast enough. In the new breakneck cycle of recording releases, it can be hard to keep up the pace you may feel you need to reach the fans you know are out there. Not everyone is a prolific-enough songwriter to get a single a month out or to fill a strong, regularly varying setlist.

You realize your talent lies elsewhere and that’s where you want to focus. You may see your strengths and know you’re an amazing singer, a charismatic performer--but you’re not as strong a lyricist or composer. Perhaps you’re a great arranger, but not as great when it comes to composing. Especially when you’re first starting out, you simply may not have had enough time or practice to achieve what you want as a songwriter. Or you may realize that there are other, highly gifted people out there writing the kind of songs you’d love to perform.

You’re looking for something very specific, perhaps for a specific occasion, you just need to find it. You may have an audition, say, or a

The answer used to be to ask a music publisher. Traditionally, they were the arbiters of song and songwriter access, and getting through the wall of silence as an independent artist often proved daunting (if not impossible).

However, just as DAWs and digital distribution changed the game for artists, technology and the internet have begun to transform how songs go to market. Songwriters and independent publishers are opening up to new ways of doing things, including making direct connections with artists and offering high-quality songs for direct license. It’s easier to find and license professionally crafted songs than it’s ever been before.

That’s all well and good but finding the right song for you and your needs now can still feel challenging. Here are a few tips to inspire you as you begin your search.

Listen to your heart. We know, it’s sappy advice. But it’s true, and it’s something we’ve seen in our decades of writing songs and working with songwriters. There’s a moment when an artist hears a song and knows it’s The One. Find that moment. Pick a song that moves you.

Don’t think like a one-hit wonder. Songs aren’t memes, and artists who want to have a career, not 15 seconds of fame, should choose their songs accordingly. It’s not about what’s trending on the flavor-of-the-month app right now, or what some big name is doing. Select songs that will define who you are as an artist, that give you room to breathe and grow. A song should be a mile marker on your long-term journey.

Think outside the genre box. Most great professional songwriters will have credits scattered over a bunch of genres during their career. You can think the same way. Don’t just seek out songs that fit what you think your style is. Listen to a variety of options for a song that tells a story or speaks to a feeling or issue you connect with.

It’s your thing. Just because a songwriter envisioned a song in a certain way doesn’t mean you can’t play around with things.

Make whatever song you choose your own via arrangements, interpretation, or even translation.

You need to ensure you can do that, however, by making sure you’ve got the appropriate license for the song you’re hoping to record.

Depending on your license, you may have the freedom to adjust wording or language as well as musical elements. (Licenses via Rocket Songs, for example, allow for translation.) You may discover that that country song works beautifully in Tagalog, or that that party anthem slowed down feels like the perfect ballad. Just because you didn’t write it doesn’t mean you can’t get super creative and express something new.

The goal is to make good music, forge your own path as a producer or performer, and say something meaningful. Finding a strong, professionally written song can help you do that, all while helping a fellow musical creative at the same time. Choose wisely, choose what really moves you, and you’ll find the song that works.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS John Cesario has written for artists like Eddie Money and Fleetwood Mac. J Stone has spent decades supporting songwriters as a publisher. Together, they founded Rocket Songs, the first marketplace where anyone can find and license high-quality original songs by professional songwriters. See more at rocketsongs.com.

FINDING YOU SONG BY A P

6 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

OUR FIRST PRO

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photo by Marco Verch

John Cesario and J Stone of Rocket Songs PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 7

MUSIC BUSINESS

A Little Pre-Production Before Your Session Can Save You Time and Money

Y

ou’ve finally finished writing your song, you’ve tweaked and tweaked, changing phrases, a word here and there until it was just right. You can’t wait to start recording and get this baby out into the world. If you want to make the recording and mixing as painless as possible, a little preproduction will go a long way. Here are some things to consider before you hit “Record.”

What is your goal?

You should have a really good idea of how the finished product should sound.

Think about the arrangement. Will there be space for the song to breathe or are you going after a wall of sound? What is the emotion and energy you

8 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

are trying to express with this song?

If you don’t have any idea what you want the track to ultimately sound like, do some homework and start listening to popular songs from the same genre. Use them as a reference. Listen critically and dissect what you hear so you can transfer it to your mix. Once you’ve got a good mix, add your own flavor to it.

Take your time to get the sound right.

As you’re dialing in the guitar tone, sifting through synth patches, and sorting out drums, spend some time thinking about how all of the individual instruments are going to work together.

If you’ve got a guitar tone heavy in the mid-range right where your lead singer’s voice sits, and you stack an organ on top of that, mixing is going to be a challenge. You’ll be struggling to create clarity between all of the elements in the mix.

The best musicians I have worked with have spent time carefully choosing and crafting their sounds to make sure they aren’t stepping on each other. If the snare drum and vocal are competing for the same space, it’s a pretty good bet that the vocal is going to win and the snare will be somewhat lost in the mix (sorry drummers).

One of my all-time favorite drummers that I had the privilege of mixing was the late Pat Torpey from the band Mr. Big. Along with being an incredible drummer, Pat was a master at crafting his sound. Mr. Big is 4-piece rock band consisting of guitar and bass virtuosos Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan, along with lead vocalist Eric Martin, and Pat. Billy’s bass sound is unique, more midrange than deep bass. He and Paul are both wellknown shredders, playing thousands of notes throughout a song. With all of that going on and

ph

be sure to audition the sounds and choose those appropriate for the genre you are working in.

When you spend some time making sure everything sits in its own frequency space before you record, your life will be much easier when it comes time to mix.

Should you use fresh guitar strings and drum heads?

Consider the sound you are going for. If it requires a break-in period, then re-string and/or change drum heads a few days before recording so they have a chance to loosen up while you practice.

If you want a duller, softer sound you may choose not to use fresh strings or heads.

While on the subject of instruments, everything should be working properly and in good shape. Use good quality cables that are noise-free, fresh batteries in pickups and guitar pedals, etc.

Check for and eliminate problems like buzzing from electrical grounding issues or noisy and/or intermittent cables, objects rattling in the room.

Money can be tight and the thought of spending it on good quality cables, fresh drum heads, or having someone professionally set up your acoustic guitar to get rid of the fret buzz may seem like an unnecessary expense. However, it will be more expensive later when you end up paying for the studio engineer’s time to try and ‘fix it in the mix.’

The importance of tuning.

It goes without saying that everything needs to be properly tuned from stringed instruments to drum heads. If using an acoustic piano, have it tuned just prior to recording and check to make sure the other instruments are in tune with it.

Eric’s rich vocal tone, the drums could easily have been relegated to the back of the mix and Pat knew that. He was smart enough to build his drum kit to fit right in between everything instead of competing with it. His carefully choosing and tuning everything from his kick drum to his cymbals gave him his own space, ensuring he would be heard and not just the drummer in the back.

As you are dialing in your sound, think about everything else going on in the song.

Don’t forget about the cymbals, when they are chosen without consideration of the environment (studio or live) and the overall sound of the track, they can easily become a wash of noise drowning out things like acoustic instruments, vocals, etc.

The timbre should not be overlooked.

If you are using virtual instruments or samples,

It’s garbage in garbage out. It’s much easier to end up with great sounds when you start with great sounds at the source. If you record a poorly tuned drum kit now, you’ll end up spending a lot of time trying to EQ it to sound good later.

Choose the right microphone.

If you are recording live instruments, you’ll want to pair the instrument and microphone correctly. Granted you might not have the budget for a full kit of Neumanns but you can still achieve great results when you use the right tool for the job. Pay attention to the microphone’s frequency response to be sure it can give you what you want.

This may require listening to a variety to see which sounds best. If you choose a microphone that has a natural roll-off in the low frequencies to capture the low end of a kick drum or bass guitar cabinet, you’ll end up disappointed. Specifications for all of the major microphone manufacturer’s products

can be found online. A quick Google search for the microphone’s spec sheet will show you the frequency response curve.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with microphone positioning. Sometimes just minor changes in the placement of a microphone can create big changes in the sound being captured. Take some time to find the sweet spot.

Finally, set proper input signal level to your DAW.

MUSIC BUSINESS

photo by Peter Kirn

Distortion is one of the surest signs of an amateur recording. If you want great sound, you need a strong signal level that is safely below clipping.

Hitting the red on your input meter or pre-amp is clipping. It introduces distortion and sounds terrible. When the signal level is too weak, you’ll end up over-compensating at other places in the signal path. Ultimately this results in lower quality audio.

Make sure your pre-amp gain is optimally set, not too high and not too low.

A little time spent in preparation will save you on the back end.

Whether you’re recording and mixing in your home studio or paying for the services of a professional engineer, these tips will save you time and money.

Show up prepared with everything ready to go.

Technical problems with equipment and spending precious time deliberating on decisions that could have been made before the session can really interrupt the creative process, knocking you out of flow.

If you’re paying for studio time, it adds up very quickly. Why pay for the studio engineer to solve problems with your gear or sounds that could have been worked out beforehand?

Spend the time to craft your sounds and get the details right before you begin recording. Starting with a clear picture of what you want to end up with and making sure everything aligns with it will get you off to a good start.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato is a professional sound engineer who has worked with Elvis Costello, Styx, Gwen Stefani, Melissa Etheridge, and many more over her 30-year career. She is co-founder of soundgirls.org, a Full Sail University Hall of Fame inductee and creator of MixingMusicLive.com where she teaches sound engineers, musicians, and songwriters, how to get their best sound.

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 9

MUSIC BUSINESS

Having the Talk: How to Plan for Future Sync Opportunities with Your Collaborators 10 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

To put yourself in the best position to win a sync for your music, it’s important to understand how the process works. Being prepared ahead of time will allow you to move quickly and confidently when the opportunity arrives and to avoid hitches that can lead music supervisors and other sync professionals to move on to the next track. You can start by understanding the process.

How Sync Works A sync opportunity arises when someone wants to align music with a project, whether that be an ad, TV episode, film or other audio-visual work. Projects can also include audio-only works, such as a podcast or audio ads. The sync outreach may come from any one of a variety of sources, depending on the nature of the project, including a creative producer, music supervisor or music director in charge of lining up music options.

Three types of music are used for sync: commercial music (i.e., music made for commercial release to consumers via EPs, albums, and DSPs); production music (music produced specifically for sync and made available through production libraries); and custom compositions. Each of these three categories compete with one another when it comes to sync, with commercial music offering a wide range of diversity as well as artist brand equity; production music offering transactional ease and cost efficiency; and custom composition allowing for creative overlay and flexibility. In all cases, the goal is to advance the messaging and storytelling by finding the best music to fit within the project budget.

Sync pitching is often a speed round. Music supervisors or an ad agency, say, send out a brief describing the type of track they are seeking for their client. Depending on the budget and the creative requirements, all three music options may be on the table: commercial, production and custom. Turnaround time can be critical. If interest is expressed in your track, you need to be ready to license quickly—or the supe or agency may move on.

How Sync Licenses Work The vehicle by which you authorize someone

to synchronize your music with their project is called a sync license, which grants the holder (the “licensee”) certain rights to the underlying copyright in the music. With any recorded song, there are two potential copyrights: one in the composition and one in the individual recording.

If you own or control both, your music is known as “one stop” -- meaning that a potential licensee can get all the rights they need directly from you.

If ownership in the copyrights reside with more than one party, that music is “multi-stop,” and potential licensees need rights from all copyright holders or their representatives.

With production music and custom music, rights are typically consolidated in a single entity (i.e., the production library or the custom composer/artist), simplifying the licensing process. The same is true for a significant portion of singer/songwriter music in the independent sector.

Copyright ownership in commercial music, however, can get complicated very quickly, such as where there are multiple songwriters, each with their own publisher, as well as multiple owners of the recording. As an artist, it’s important for you to know who owns what rights in your music, and whether you and those who represent you are in the best position possible to make it easy for your music to be licensed for sync.

Set Yourself Up for Success The music business is based on a variety of revenue streams, such as ticket sales from live performance; physical, digital and merch sales; streaming revenue; public performance royalties; and sync. Any time you do a deal involving your music--whether it be with a booking agent, manager, label, distributor, publisher, sync agent, or others--you are likely impacting one or more of these revenue streams and the portion that will flow back to you. Read the contract carefully!

Many artists have unwittingly signed away key portions, if not all the monetization opportunity generated by their creative work.

Fortunately, increased education about the business of music has led artists to be savvier about protecting their interests, including in the area of sync. To position yourself well for sync, consider the following: First, understand who owns what when it comes to your music. Be clear in your band and any songwriting collaboration agreements about allocation of copyright ownership.

If your music is one-stop for sync (e.g., you own both copyrights or you’ve granted your label authority to represent both copyrights for sync), you’re in a strong position to respond quickly to sync opportunities.

If your music is multi-stop for sync (e.g., you have co-writers, you are recording songs written

by others, or you are represented by both a label and a publisher), track who all the owners/sync approvers are. This may entail some sleuth work if you’re recording others’ songs, but PRO entities like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC have searchable databases. Read your manager, label, publisher, sync agent contracts carefully to understand what rights you have granted them.

It can be helpful to maintain this information in a spreadsheet Consider working with any co-owners and/ or your label and publisher to vest responsibility for making sync decisions in one entity, within an agreed upon framework that, for example, excludes categories of sync that may be disagreeable to you and includes pre-approved pricing and terms for various types of sync.

Consolidating decision-making authority over sync rights and identifying in advance the types of sync you’re willing to pursue and under what terms helps your representative to be aggressive and responsive when pursuing syncs.

Keep an eye on the expanding realm of sync.

New avenues are opening up thanks to next-gen creatives, including in the video game, podcast, social media, and prosumer space, as well as with app developers and others. It is easier now than ever to produce content of all types and content producers love using music to help lift their narratives. The more you track these trends and consider in advance your willingness to allow your music to be used for sync in these spaces, and at what price points, the better prepared you’ll be to seize upon the opportunity when it arises.

While commercial music offers distinct and often definitive advantages over production music and custom music, there are times when commercial music must compete with these two other sync alternatives. Consider this as you think strategically about pricing and positioning your music for sync.

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sync is a wonderful thing, often bringing artists unexpected income and exposing their music to a new audience. A winning sync is also a boon for the production team. Successfully pairing music and creative uniquely elevates each component, with the artistry involved gaining heightened recognition thanks to a variety of industry awards.

The world of sync is changing dramatically thanks to the digital transformation of media and entertainment. Music plays a pivotal role in productions and storytelling of all types.

Now, more than ever, commercial music artists compete with production music and custom composition. The ability to respond quickly to sync opportunities spanning a range of budgets and business models, from macro to micro syncs, can be critical to actually winning the opportunity. Artists who provide an easy path to license their music can come out on top.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Cestjon McFarland is an intellectual property rights lawyer who has represented both tech companies and independent music labels in the Seattle area. Together with Kirt Debique, she founded SyncFloor, the leading online marketplace where you can find quality commercial music for sync.

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 11

MUSIC BUSINESS

How to Maximize Your Mechanical Royalties

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s an independent artist, you are probably all too familiar with the issues that have long clouded and complicated the process of getting the digital audio mechanical royalties that you are owed for the use of your songs.

It’s also likely that you’ve heard about The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC), the new non-profit organization responsible for administering blanket licenses covering musical works available on U.S.-based digital audio services and distributing the royalties due under those licenses to songwriters, composers, lyricists and other creators. Still, you may have questions about The MLC, exactly how our organization works, and perhaps most importantly, how The MLC can work for you.

First, some background: The MLC was established by the Music Modernization Act of 2018 (MMA), a historic piece of legislation that sought to create a more efficient and effective way for digital service providers (or DSPs) to license the music they make available on their platforms and ensure the proper rightsholders receive the mechanical royalties they are entitled to for the use of their works on those platforms.

Before the MMA, digital mechanical licensing was done largely on a song-by-song basis. But with countless songs on dozens of platforms, it was virtually impossible to obtain licenses for every use of every song, making it almost equally as impossible to deliver royalties to rightsholders accurately and efficiently (or in some cases, pay them out at all).

The MMA established a new digital mechanical blanket license that grants DSPs permission to use every song on their platforms and designated The MLC to exclusively administer those licenses and collect the royalties due under them. As of January 1 of this year, services operating under the blanket license will send recording usage information and mechanical royalty payments to The MLC, which will then match the recordings to the songs they are based on, and pay the rightsholders of the songs their royalties on a monthly basis.

These changes have important ramifications

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for independent artists, but in order to take advantage of them and position yourself to begin receiving digital audio mechanical royalties moving forward, there are steps you will need to take.

First and foremost, if you are a selfadministered songwriter (one who is not signed to or affiliated with a music publisher or publishing administrator), composer or lyricist with songs or compositions that are available in the U.S. on digital on-demand streaming or download services, you must become a member of The MLC (which is completely free of charge) to be eligible to receive digital audio mechanical royalties.

To sign up, visit The MLC’s website (TheMLC.com) and click on the blue Connect to Collect button on the homepage. From there, you will be asked to create a username and password for access to The MLC Portal, which is where MLC Members register, maintain and update their musical works data. After you have signed up and The MLC has verified your identity, you will need to create a Member profile with all of your pertinent contact and financial information, and then you can begin the process of getting your musical works data added to The Portal.

The top priority in this process is to ensure that the data you register is as accurate and complete as possible, as not doing so could ultimately cause delays in getting you paid.

To help you get started, The MLC offers an organizational resource designed to help selfadministered songwriters, composers, and lyricists organize all of their musical works data before they add it to The MLC Portal. This makes it easy to compile important information such as the ISWCs (International Standard Musical Work Codes) specific to your musical works and the IPI (Interested Party Information) number assigned to you by your performing rights organization, as well information about the writers of each song and the share of royalties each writer (or their publishing entity) is entitled to collect. (Please note that this resource is strictly an organizational tool; it cannot be uploaded or added into the Portal itself.)

From there, you have two options for getting your musical works data added to The MLC Portal. You

can manually enter information for each of your musical works using the screens and prompts in the Portal. Or, if your catalog is especially large, you can use The MLC’s Bulk Data Upload feature, which allows you to upload data about lots of songs or compositions directly to The Portal from a spreadsheet. The MLC Portal is designed to work seamlessly on both desktop and mobile devices, so whichever approach you choose, you can do so on your phone, tablet, or desktop computer.

Remember, you won’t need to submit any audio files as part of this process, just your relevant musical works data. However, if you know information about any recordings that have been made of your songs, like the name of the artist (maybe that’s you!) and the ISRC (International Standard Recording Code), you should enter that data as well. Helping us make the connection between your songs and the recordings that have been made of your songs is one of the most important things you can do to get paid quickly and accurately.

Finally, once The MLC has reviewed and approved all of your data, we always recommend that you check on your data in The Portal or The MLC’s publicly accessible database and make any updates or adjustments that might be needed.

It’s important to note that if you are affiliated with a music publisher or administrator who registers your musical works and collects your mechanical royalties in the U.S., you will not need to become a Member of The MLC. Your publisher or administrator has likely already joined The MLC and will handle registering your musical works data on your behalf. To be sure, check with your music publisher or administrator to confirm that they have joined The MLC. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the complexity of digital mechanical licensing and everything outlined above. But by joining The MLC, you are gaining an important ally in this new process, one that is committed to serving you and empowering you with all of the resources, tools, and information you need.

The MLC regularly hosts webinars that go deep into the details about how to join The MLC and how to register your songs in The MLC

MUSIC BUSINESS

ur Digital es Through The MLC

Portal and include ample time for questions, while the Resources section of our website offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to provide individuals with everything they need to get the most out of their MLC Membership. And once you’ve joined The MLC, our trained and knowledgeable Support Team is available to assist you with any questions or concerns you have about your Membership or your musical works data, and they can be reached quickly by filling out a simple form, calling our support phone number, or initiating a chat within The Portal.

The MMA ushered in a new era of digital mechanical licensing. In order to be a part of it – and get the compensation you have earned and deserve – we encourage you to visit our website and join The MLC as soon as possible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ellen Truley is the Chief Marketing Officer of The MLC, the nonprofit designated by the U.S. Register of Copyrights in July 2019 pursuant to the Music Modernization Act of 2018 and responsible for administering the new blanket compulsory license for the use of musical works by digital music services. The MLC is governed by a Board of Directors comprised of songwriters and representatives of music publishers. For more background on The MLC and its Board and Committee members, go to TheMLC.com.

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 13

MUSIC BUSINESS

LYRIC HOUSE’S TO A&R FOR SY Patrick Clancy

T

o say that Lyric House has been busy during the last year would be an understatement, and the creative key to our success lies in the synch-focused A&R we do from the ground floor.

We take A&R very seriously. After all, our business and livelihood doesn’t exist without a talented roster to pitch! Here’s a glimpse into what we look for when finding new artists/ writers/producers to sign and work with, and how we partner with them to cut through the noise and stand out in the synch world.

Research & Vetting Potential Artists: 1. Referrals - It’s safe to say that 90% of our signings have come to us from trusted colleagues, artists and writers, industry friends and more.

Everyone has a band or artist they want to share.

We love and appreciate these referrals because at the end of the day, our business is first and foremost built on trust. Trust in our ear, our track record, our respect for project confidentiality, ability to meet deadlines, and trust in our accuracy in our metadata and organization.

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2. Scouting - Aside from referrals, like many A&R’s, some of our team members scour the internet and social media daily looking for the next big artist or writer. That could be from a variety of streaming services (SoundCloud/ Bandcamp/Spotify), or checking out performances of up-and-coming bands, music blogs, etc. Gone are the days of fully developing talent from scratch. We are always looking to find that diamond in the rough that is hustling and creating while being very aware of their identity as an artist/writer. It’s important for us to be able to identify that specialness in someone and take what they’ve built so far and take it to a whole new level of expansion.

3. Submissions - We are one of a few synch companies that actually allow unsolicited submissions. It takes some time for us to review but it can always be worth it when we land on something we are all really excited about. There have been a few submissions that have turned out to be some of our most successful artists/ producers on our roster, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It rarely happens. Mostly because we get a lot of “noise” in our inboxes

including people not following guidelines - so it makes it that much harder for us to get to the artists or writers that are “placement ready.” If you come prepared by following the submission guidelines on our website and do some research about us (does your music fit our repertoire, have you crossed check Tunefind.com to see if your music can stand up against songs in TV / film, etc.), have professional recordings that are pitch ready, then you’ll have a much better chance at connecting with us and getting a reply!

Signing an artist or writer is very much like interviewing for a job. Once we find a potential signee, we set up multiple meetings to get to know more about them and make sure they are a great fit to our roster. It’s also important to us that all parties involved are team players, good energy and of course highly talented! Bringing something fresh and new to our roster is always attractive to us.

A few factors we consider when looking for an artist: 1. Is the artist actively promoting themselves?

MUSIC BUSINESS

’S APPROACH YNC OPPS Jessica Cole

- Can anyone easily look them up and find that they are engaging with fans and building their brand as an artist? If they’re primarily a producer or writer, are they always hustling to network and create as much music as possible?

at diamond status! No matter what level of experience, we signed that particular artist or producer for a reason, and we don’t want to do anything to take away from that, only help in achieving their goal as a music creator.

2. Are they organized and prepared for us to pitch them? That means having all the assets needed, instrumental tracks, clean versions, lyrics, visuals (photos, album artwork, etc.) and splits.

To start, the creative team meets each week to discuss what has come up in music searches or meetings with music supervisors and identify what is the current hot sound or trend or what we feel needs to be expanded upon in our catalog.

3. Is their team easy to work with? That goes for managers, attorneys, PR teams, and especially anyone who regularly cowrites/produces/ engineers with them. We’ve had no problem passing on a potential partnership because a member of the team was unprofessional or toxic.

For example, we might see an uptick of searches for a certain genre that we don’t represent yet, or it could be a music supervisor looking to replace a popular (and most often an expensive) song with new ideas from up-andcoming artists. A lot of times, we like to be ahead of the curve and innovate in our song/sound guidance with our writers and artists - so we can set that next cool trend. We love taking risks and coming up with ideas with our writers as to how to execute that next sound. From there, our team will brainstorm on which of our artists, writers, and producers should be paired together to use those themes and innovative ideas as inspiration

From there we can finally get to work! Our approach to working creatively with our roster is fine-tuned and tailored to each signee. Some require a lot of handholding at first, and others might only need very minimal direction. Either you’re a young and hungry artist ready for our guidance and development, or you are already

while creating something uniquely their own.

What truly sets us apart is we are a team of passionate creators ourselves. Our President and Founder, Jessica Cole, is also a seasoned songwriter so she takes a very hands-on approach to ensure a positive and creative environment. That could mean personally coming up with ideas as to who should be paired with who, joining the session to make sure those songs are at the standard Lyric House is known for, and sometimes it’s to write with her favorite collaborators and create something awesome together. Jessica and all of us at Lyric House love to explore new territories in sound and push our writers to the best of their capabilities. At the end of the day, we want our artists to be excited enough about a new song that they can’t wait to share it with the world… and hopefully on their favorite show.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Patrick Clancy is the Director of Creative and Music and Lyric House and Jessica Cole is Lyric House’s CEO. PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 15

SPOTLIGHT 16 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

SPOTLIGHT

81355 Indy-Based Hip-Hop Heads Unite Their DIY Roots For New Group Project

(aka Bless) Tony Eubank

Anna Powell-Denton

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 17

SPOTLIGHT

F

ounded by three of Indianapolis’ brightest talents, 81355 (pronounced Bless) includes hip-hop pioneers Sirius Blvck, Oreo Jones & David Moose Adamson. Upon formation, the group quickly signed to 37d03d, the record label founded by Justin Vernon, Aaron Dessner, and Bryce Dessner and got to work in the studio.

They just dropped a killer new single, “Tidal Wave,” and sat down with Performer to chat about the group’s origin, collaborative DIY experiences and messaging for today’s indie artists. Keep an eye out for the debut full-length later this year.

How did you guys get started, and what’s the hip-hop scene like in Indianapolis today? I’m actually from Indiana myself, and remember listening to Mud Kids growing up…

Sirius Blvck: That’s awesome. I started in Indianapolis doing poetry slams and things like that, then I started a hip-hop band. From there, I was in a punk band when I was younger, 18 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

kinda jumped around, and then I started doing music under the name Sirius Blvck around 2012, put out my first tape, and I’ve been dropping consistently throughout the years, gaining my footing for the most part. Then we [81355] linked up for this record.

David ‘Moose’ Adamson: I’ve been into hip-hop since I first started listening to music, and I had little bands where we’d record music on tape in grade school, and some high school bands and then a band that put out some records on Asthmatic Kitty Records, which started in ’07 to 2011 or so. And then I did some solo stuff and started doing tunes with OJ, and then all three of us did a tune for one of Nick’s [Sirius Blvck] records.

81355 started officially last year, all three of us together.

How did y’all decide to hook up, did you just know each other from working in the same city?

Sirius Blvck: I linked up with OJ in 2014, we did a song on my record “Light in the Attic,” and that was the first time we all came together and worked on a track in full. It was just dope, it came out really good, and through the years we

had always wanted to link up and work together in some way, shape or form again.

Our homie MK hit us up and said he had this idea that we should do a record together. And we had already thought of that a million times [laughs] so it all kinda just came together.

We went to record it…

Moose: That was last fall…

Sirius Blvck: …and we laid down eight tracks in three days, and it just went naturally.

It all fell together and our engineer would just try to keep up with us. He did an amazing job, he did a lot of work on the project with us. From there, we went back into the studio and did three [more] songs in a day, and came out with “Tidal Wave,” our first single that we dropped recently.

When are you all releasing some more?

Sirius Blvck: A new single drops March 31st, and that’s gonna coincide with the announcement of the album itself -- the first single will be “Capstone,” we just shot the video and we’re excited for it. We did a lot of crazy shit for the video, buried ourselves alive…it was interesting [laughs].

Sirius Blvck: I listened to a lot of Postal Service when I was younger, you know? I listened to a lot of Deftones, I loved Metallica when I was a kid. I’ve always drawn from different things, my mom was always bumping outlaw country back in the day, so I’ve always been around different sounds, in a way. I love Linkin Park and what people would call cheesy nu-metal stuff as well.

We bump a lot of Korn [laughs].

Can you tell us what the hip-hop scene is like in Indianapolis?

Sirius Blvck: Indianapolis not a full metropolitan city. It’s always been in-between, we have as many cornfields [as urban areas].

The scene itself has so much untapped potential, we just haven’t had that opportunity yet. It may be timing, it may be a lot of different things, but there’s a lot of great hip-hop coming out of the city…

[Ed. note - Oreo Jones re-joins the chat after some Zoom difficulties] OJ: I feel like we’re all cut from the same cloth in the DIY vein of things. I started in punk bands in high school -- that was the thing to do in my hometown on weekends, hardcore shows.

So that’s where I cut my teeth, kinda similar to the other guys where we were booking our own shows, playing instruments and navigating our own way by ourselves. When I moved here [Indianapolis] is when I got into hip-hop more extensively and discovered the whole city and the whole culture and scene here. It’s going pretty crazy right now.

What do you all feel like your parts are in the group?

Moose: I get things started off with some instrumentals and loops; that’s how we started this project, I sent over some things to OJ and Nick, and we kinda took it from there. That’s the jumping off place, and it was really collaborative from there. After that, we just got in a room together, writing, coming up with lyrics together.

OJ and Nick come up with most of the lyrics – that’s how we’ve done it so far, just hammering away at it. Even in the studio, we were still making changes and updates.

Sirius Blvck: My role is to use melody a lot. There was a lot of collaboration [during the writing and recording]. Moose’s production on the record is in his own lane, so to speak, just the way he blends his sounds – sometimes there are

different time signatures going on, it’s dope. As a rapper, it pushes you to think outside the box and find some new waves.

What kind of equipment are you using to write loops or make beats?

Moose: For a lot of the instrumentals on this record, I used some old drum machines. I have a Roland CR-68, a Maestro Rhythm King for some loops. I also used a Suzuki QChord

OJ: It takes work and time, but for us it started at a young age. So that mentality, that ethos has kind of been instilled in all of us for so long, even at this capacity with a team helping us, we’re so used to booking our own tours, doing our own campaigns with our albums, making sure our merch is straight. That’s always been a part of our DNA, I feel. We’re in a city that has a very small population of people who appreciate art and culture, so we almost have this chip

SPOTLIGHT

I went back and listened to a lot of your older stuff, and there’s so much diversity there. I was interested to hear what kinds of influences you all had and what do you listen to for inspiration?

On DIY culture: “Why reach up for help for resources, when you could reach out?

Everything and everybody we need to grow what we have is right around us.”

electronic autoharp on the record, and I have a drum machine called the Dave Smith Tempest that I use quite a bit. It has some synthesizer capabilities that I use, like an analog synth engine that’s [on the record].

OJ: What’s interesting is that “Tidal Wave” is completely different than the rest of the record. Completely different. I feel like it’s definitely got more of an accessible pop flavor to it; the record itself is very original and organic and the sounds are out of this world.

Moose does such a great job at creating these crazy-ass sounds that I’ve never heard before. I feel like we’re used to each other’s tendencies, having been on each other’s records. I know how Nick writes; he knows how I write. I know how Moose gets in the pocket, so I think the sound comes out like that too, almost like a sixth sense that we all home in on.

on our shoulder where we have to go as hard as we can, 24/7.

Sirius Blvck: It grew slowly but surely, and now our scenes are so integrated that hardcore and punk bands are on shows with hip-hop acts [all the time]. That’s just the norm. There’s always been that comradery, the DIY shit…why reach up for help for resources, when you could reach out? Everything and everybody we need to grow what we have is right around us.

Follow on Instagram: @81355ing

Do you see yourselves continuing with this project, or is 81355 a one-off thing?

Sirius Blvck: For us, we just started because we loved making music together and we had the opportunity to do something to this degree. From there, once we heard the record, it started to set in a little bit more what this could be. Michael, our manager, was super supportive when he heard the record. He just wanted to get it out to people, he really believed in the music.

We kinda knew it was something we wanted to continue doing.

You mentioned the whole DIY thing earlier, how does that work in a place like Indiana?

81355 “TIDAL WAVE [SINGLE]” OUT NOW!

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 19

SPOTLIGHT 20 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

Jason Peterson

B

artees Strange is having quite a year. Heaps of critical praise, commercial attention, and vocal fandom have been directed at Bartees and his two 2020 releases: Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy, a deft reinterpretation of ten songs by The National, and Live Forever, a complex, joyous mix of rock, hip-hop, and jazz.

Strange (Bartees Cox, Jr. when he’s offstage) bounced around the U.S. and overseas as a kid and spent his formative years in rural Oklahoma, an experience that permeates Live Forever. Now living and making music in Washington, D.C., Strange took a measured path to life as a full-time musician/producer. That deliberate, incremental pace makes his success - and his music - all the more impressive.

Bartees spoke to Performer about this thoughtful approach to creativity, demystifying the recording process, and his love for the weird, wonderful Fender VI. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

One of the reasons I’m talking to you now is that you recently posted on Twitter about wanting to be interviewed about gear.

What made you put that into the universe?

Because everyone wanted to talk about the record - and I love my album, but I think the thing about it that is the coolest to me is like, how it was made, and the people who were involved.

I think there’s a lot of fear around making your own records and producing your own things

and doing stuff with your friends. I feel like people get to a point where they want to make a record, and they’re like - ‘Okay - I’ve got to spend all this money, and I’ve got to get the right people,’ and all this stuff. But like - No. I mean, Live Forever was made in a one room barn with my friends. That’s fine. [laughs] I guess I’m always down to try to demystify the recording process so that more people understand that they can - that money doesn’t always have to be a barrier to making something that’s meaningful.

Both records sound incredible in distinct ways. Did you have a particular sound you were going for ahead of time?

Yeah, I think I had a direction. I knew what I wanted them to sound like, but I definitely wasn’t successful in getting to all those sounds. But I found other things. I think that’s also a big part of recording: everyone has that picture in their head of what they want - but other things can also make it work.

I feel with music, people put so much attention on the gear you use and how things sound and the quality of the recording. When really, the thing that’s going to make that record hit hard is if the song is good. [laughs] I felt that with Live Forever. There were points when I would get to a song, and I’d be like, ‘Damn - this does not sound like I was hoping it would sound.’ [laughs] But it’s doing something different that I didn’t know that I wanted. And it’s working - it’s totally working.

The emotional goal of the song is being met, and so I went with it. I’m glad I did that instead of continuing to tweak. Because I could have potentially tweaked myself into a world where

SPOTLIGHT

Bartees Strange on Making Music He Wants to Hear (and Letting Go of the Rest) Julia Leiby

that record never came out. You’ve got to trust the song and just kind of go with it, you know?

I saw you recently picked up a Fender VI. How has that been?

Yo - it’s the greatest shit. [laughs] It’s the greatest instrument ever. I’m so sold on it. I saw some guy playing one at a coffee shop years ago, and I just was like, ‘Oh, you’re playing a Jaguar…’

And you’re sitting around like, ‘Wait, what is that?’ You know, it’s just so weird...

I’ve been looking for one for so long and like they’re incredibly expensive. [laughs] A Custom Shop [version] is like five grand, and an original one from the ’60s is like ten grand. And the Squire is four hundred bucks - I’ve played a few and they’re cool, but...it’s not the thing [laughs].

I recently found one. This guy was selling one at the local guitar shop for a very affordable price, and I scooped it up. [laughs] I loved your recent conversation with Jesse Cannon, especially around the incremental nature of your “overnight” success. Is there anything you’d add on to that - just how thoughtful you were about releasing these two records and everything that went into it?

Oh man - like I said to Jesse, so many times throughout my life, I was just like - ‘Dude, this is not going to work out.’ [laughs] So many times in life I knew - I was sure it would never work out.

And I found that people started to appear that told me, ‘No, it is going to work out. You just got to keep moving. Keep getting better. Keep learning things. Keep writing things.’

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SPOTLIGHT

I kind of had the realization that whether this shit really pops off - or it doesn’t - I think I’m always going to want to make things. Once I came to that realization, I was like, ‘Okay. It doesn’t have to work out.’ I’m going to be doing this regardless.

Once I hit that point of - I’m just making stuff I want to hear, I just kind of was like, ‘Fuck it. If you like what I’m doing - great, hop on the train, let’s ride.’ I don’t need everybody. I just need a few people that really get it, you know? I would just encourage everyone to just - think of the things you make that way. If you put out a few records and no one likes them - that’s okay. [laughs] I’ve put out so much music that no one will ever hear.

And that’s okay. It got me here.

It’s like - people who get really upset about not having more success in their early twenties or mid-twenties - and I’m like, ‘That’s okay.’ I was homeless for a year. I was out here...really struggling. Trying to make it work and going from job to job, just trying to find myself. I had to go through all of that to get here. And I don’t think that I would be as prepared for the things that are coming if I didn’t go through those things.

I really think that regardless of the challenges people may face - creative people may face - making things is so important. Making things is what excited me about waking up the next day when nothing else could. I really think - success, recognition - that stuff is going to come. But making things - whether it’s music or film, or whatever you’re creating - you got to be making it for yourself first.

Oftentimes, you’re going to know you have something before anyone else does. And if it’s very good, a lot of people aren’t going to want to help you! [laughs] They’re going to be a little jealous, or they’re just not going to know what to do. That doesn’t mean that what you’ve done doesn’t mean anything. It just means you haven’t found the right person yet.

There are no endings - everything just leads to the next thing. You keep on trying new things. You keep trying. That’s what I would say to everybody. [laughs] Your commencement address. [both laugh] I love it.

“People put so much attention on the gear you use and how things sound and the quality of the recording. When really, the thing that’s going to make that record hit hard is if the song is good.”

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Yeah, that’s what I do. [laughs] To leave off, has there been anything catching you lately - either a new piece of gear that’s inspiring you or something making you want to write?

Honestly, no, not on the gear front. More on the arrangement front. I really want to try more resampling. ‘Okay, we’re going to do a rock song.

I’ve tracked the drums; I’ve tracked the bass; I’ve

So, the entire instrumentation is now just being triggered through a pad hitting with the same attack as like a kick drum or a snare drum would hit. It’s like triggering an orchestra in a way. I want to write rock songs that are basically programmed like rap songs, if that makes sense. I think that could be really cool.

SPOTLIGHT

tracked the guitar, and this shit’s hitting. It sounds great.’ I want to take all that quantize it, put it on an [Roland] SP - like on a pad, and trigger the whole chorus...or trigger every eight bars.

I heard Heaven to a Tortured Mind by Yves Tumor. I was like, yo - like, “Gospel for a New Century,” the way that that songs starts...it’s stupid - so good. I’ve never heard anything like it, and it sounds like they literally triggered the whole song on a sampler pad - and then they took it off. Then they trigger it again. It’s like, the on and off-ness of it is just so aggressive and almost shitty - that it’s so unique and dope.

I’m jealous they did before I did. [laughs] That can drive great art, right? Chasing what you’re hearing.

Yeah, I’m in love with that idea. So, I want to try it. We’ll see what happens.

Follow on Instagram: @bartees_strange

BARTEES STRANGE LIVE FOREVER STANDOUT TRACK: “MUSTANG”

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SPOTLIGHT

THAO NGUYEN

On Building Authentic Fan Experiences, and Re-Learning How to Open Up with ‘For The Record’ Sarah Brooks

24 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

SPOTLIGHT PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 25

SPOTLIGHT

T

hao Nguyen, known for her prolific lyricism, is a solo artist on the cusp of her seventh album, a member of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, and a frequent collaborator in the music scene. When the pandemic hit, Nguyen decided to take the in-venue experience digital in the form of a Substack newsletter, bringing about a new type of connection between artist and fan. ‘For The Record’ has a healthy batch of new subscribers and counting, showing that in today’s fast-paced, overstimulated world, we’re all just looking to feel more connected.

Performer Magazine: You just launched For The Record this March in hopes it could reshape how musicians and audiences connect with one another. Could you expand on this and your initial vision for the publication?

Thao Nguyen: The initial vision was a combination of an attempt to address a few things at hand. … The first thing I wanted to do was find a way to stay in touch with fans and supporters when I couldn’t be on tour. ... And having been a touring artist for so long, just one of the most rewarding things about getting to be a musician is to see people and pass through their towns and cities. And the greater issue

“I think there will be more leverage and power for the creators, and there will be a stronger initiative to rebuild and reimagine, and do it in a more radical way.”

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SPOTLIGHT

at hand within the music industry that we’ve been grappling with for awhile now that the pandemic made so stark was the overreliance on touring for recording artists and the really compromised financial reality that the digital marketplace and web-streaming have [brought about], and also how people consume music now.

PM: I was reading the first edition of your newsletter, and you mentioned how Felicity and Sally from the show Felicity communicated purely through audio, and it’s such a pure form of connection. Did you feel like you wanted to bring elements of a more pure sense of connection back in your Substack, and what have you found in other spaces that have been more harmful or just detractive to your own creative abilities or attention?

TN: I was optimistic, but I wasn’t sure how I would be on this platform and in this newsletter format, and it turns out it suits me quite well.

And there is a purity of the connection that is quite sweet to me…It’s just a very humane, warm exchange which is what I missed from tour. So that’s been so great to see, that it’s possible to have it in this format, and that’s why I’ve been quite a timid, squeamish platform user, because you don’t want to leave yourself susceptible to the vitriol and that stuff is incredibly hurtful...I don’t know if you can be a woman with any kind of public platform and not be called a cunt on Twitter, then of course racism and misogyny and just deeply thoughtless—not the extent that other people have experienced, but I have made it a point to be very inactive. And it’s just so toxic, you just kind of spiral out because that’s what they want you to do, is to sink in and just keep scrolling...I’m a songwriter, I pedal in emotion, so it’s hard for me to not just be taken out for the day if someone gets in touch and says, “You know, your last record is overproduced.”

PM: How has it felt for you to traditionally be more reserved online, but now you have this space where you can openly share your thoughts and vignettes about your own life?

TN: It’s so nice! And it reminds me that I’m not a closed person. I’ve been doing this for 15 years, so you develop different coats of armor, and I think it’s been a disservice to close myself off. Now when I’m recording, I might document some of it and then post it on For The Record at a later time, because I have removed myself from the urgency of stopping the moment to share, and it’s distracting. It takes you out of any kind of momentum you have, which is why I’ve never shared the recording process or clips from the studio or whatever, because I don’t want to be in that space, in that mindset, when I’m trying to work.

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SPOTLIGHT

So, it’s really nice to be able to share, and it’s been a really healthy exercise in being more vulnerable in the process of making music. And it’s beneficial in ways I wasn’t expecting that people send clips of a band they’re into or a link to an artist that they thought I might like. It becomes more of a two-way, symbiotic relationship in a manner that I’d never considered, and it kind of removes the pretense of artists and fans, which I think is very healthy. It’s just people trying to get by and support each other.

PM: You’re going to introduce your fans and readers to your upcoming seventh album. Does this feel exciting or scary, and how do you hope it will allow listeners to connect to your work differently?

TN: My hope is that people will be more invested, because they’ll be able to hear or identify certain elements of a song or lyrics or content that

“Pretty much everything is out the window, and that means everything is on the table.”

I have shared and alluded to throughout a post.

My intention is to be writing and documenting what happens and why it happens. So, my hope is that subscribers will stay with me as I start forming the songs and as I record the music and as I start to tour it, so that we can share the trajectory of the songs.

PM: The music landscape changed after this pandemic. What do you think are some of the changes that will be beneficial to the music community, and are any harmful?

TN: Harmful, I’ll go with that first. I don’t know about the survival rate of a lot of independent music venues throughout the country, even with the new federal funding that I believe is coming through. I don’t know if it’s too 28 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

SPOTLIGHT late in some cases...I don’t know if there will be enough venues to play in when things come back.

Beneficial, I think a lot of musicians are taking stock of how to further empower themselves and how to establish and strengthen their direct relationship with their fans. And to acknowledge that no one in the music industry can make money without people who make the music and perform it and tour it. and I think there will be more leverage and power for the creators, and there will be a stronger initiative to rebuild and reimagine, and do it in a more radical way. Pretty much everything is out the window, and that means everything is on the table.

PM: As things start to shift and reopen, how do you see yourself using the forum and where do you see it in the future?

TN: My hope is that it travels well and that I would continue it on tour and turn it into a way of documenting tour life and interviewing friends and musicians that I’m on [the road] with and just offer that kind of glimpse and insight...My hope is that For The Record is not seen as just something that I started because I couldn’t tour, but as a real, viable way of a more sustainable relationship between a musician and fans and supporters and people who are interested.

Follow on Instagram: @thaogetstaydown

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SPOTLIGHT 30 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

SPOTLIGHT

Devon

Indie Songstress Takes Us Inside Her Approach to Songwriting

Benjamin Ricci Brianna Bornstein, Christian Orellana, Kiley Schlappich

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 31

SPOTLIGHT

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e first got to know Devon through a series of videos we worked on together in conjunction with Harman, showing off how AKG and JBL products could be used in the home studio to create a fresh new track from scratch. That track happened to be the wonderfully infectious “Glitter,” and those videos led us here. Getting to know Devon throughout the video project, we just had to go on a deep dive with her, and make sure our readers knew all about her, as well.

So, enjoy our conversation with Devon, and if you haven’t checked out that video series yet, head on over to our YouTube channel and social media pages and give them a watch – we also recently premiered “Glitter” at performermag.com – so be sure to hear the final track now that it’s done (thanks again to Harman for the gear hookup), you won’t regret it! You can also listen to the full, extended interview as part of the latest episode of the “Performer: On Record Podcast,” available on your favorite podcast service right now.

It would be great to get a little background on you as an artist – where do you come from and how did you first get into music?

Sure, I was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and from a young age I always made music. My dad plays piano, my brother plays guitar, so I’ve always been surrounded by music and I’ve always loved it. I play guitar and piano…I think when I was four years old my family took me to my first concert; they took me to see Billy Joel.

Wow, that’s a pretty good first concert!

I remember being a little kid seeing Billy Joel on stage, thinking ‘Yes, I want to do that!’

So, did that cause you to start piano?

I think I started [piano and guitar] at the same time, because my brother always wanted me to play guitar with him and my dad wanted to teach me piano. So, I kinda learned both from an early age.

Did you take formal lessons, were you self-taught or was it just a family thing?

I’ve taken formal lessons off and on throughout my whole life…but we were never playing music that I wanted to play. It was always very classical focused. I found that my best learning method was [self-taught], playing along to stuff I loved and trying to [play along].

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That was really when I started improving -when I started playing music I actually enjoyed.

When did the vocals come along, was that around the same time?

I have always been trying to sing [laughs]. I didn’t realize this, but my mom says when I was little, I was completely tone-deaf…I thought I was great! [laughs] I remember coming home at four telling my mom I didn’t like school and I wanted to become a singer, and she was like, ‘You’re four years old! You have to stick with it a little longer.’

Ever since then, my mom was putting me on and off in voice lessons, and I kept on quitting because

occasionally now do sit down and make a track first and see what lyrics and melody come after that. But throughout my whole life it’s always been lyrics-driven first; and not even melodydriven, it’s always been poetry and then building a track around that to help support the idea of the story.

So now, how do you find that process, creatively, when you start with the track first?

I’m pretty relieved when it works [laughs].

I started making tracks for the EP I put out last year and the new one I’m putting out this year.

The two EPs are related, they’re kind of a series, and I mostly started with the tracks first. I was

“This approach works better for communicating to people who might just want to feel the music.”

I was like, ‘I got this, I’m so good at singing [laughs]!’ And my mom would be like, ‘Well, let’s try another teacher….’

At some point, I learned how to hold a tune…

Well, I think there’s something to say for self-confidence in an artist, wouldn’t you?

For sure, I didn’t give up on it. If I had known I was bad, I would have given up. [laughs] On the timeline, at a certain point I would imagine songwriting enters the picture. When does that start occurring?

I have always been writing and trying to write songs since I was a little kid, but I think it was in middle school when I started enjoying poetry, so that’s when I started thinking about lyrics and listing to a lot of Counting Crows and Joni Mitchell and Sara Bareilles and trying to tell a story through song.

And that’s my main focus to this day; I think lyrics are so beautiful and so powerful.

So, when you sit down to write a song now, is it primarily lyrics-based first?

Songwriting for me has always been very lyric-driven. These days I produce all my own music, too, and I’ve been experimenting with more synth-based and electronic productions. I

SPOTLIGHT

Gotcha.

provide that, and even if they don’t like the lyrics or don’t listen to the lyrics, if they enjoy the song, as long as they listen to it enough times, they’ll get it.

And if not, I’m glad they could dance to it [laughs].

kinda nervous that I’d come up with tracks I really loved and wouldn’t be able to come up with lyrics or melodies to do them justice.

But it all worked out, I came up with the tracks and I felt very inspired by them. I have a running list of lyric ideas, and I listened to the tracks and picked out the [ones] that resonated with me.

Follow on Instagram: @devonsounds

Do you think you’ll stick with this method of writing, or will you go back to a move lyric-driven creative process?

I think, for me, this is the way I’ll do it for the foreseeable future. Because even though I did love my old songs and the old approach, I think for a wider appeal, I’m the only person who puts this much weight on the lyrics [laughs]. I think everyone else enjoys the production and wants the song to feel good. And when I start with lyrics first, my production may not feel as cohesive for the entire project.

This approach works better for communicating to people who might just want to feel the music.

Does that disappoint you that so many people don’t listen as closely to the lyrics?

I can see how it would be, but honestly, I’m excited whenever anyone finds any aspect of my songs that bring them joy. I’m happy to be able to

DEVON “GLITTER [SINGLE]” OUT NOW!

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 33

SPOTLIGHT

GARY NUMAN G

Synth Pioneer Opens Up About the Striking Journey to His New KLP

ary Numan’s 18th solo album, Intruder, is dark and sexy, visionary and venomous, a tale told from a different perspective.

The album follows 2017’s Savage: Songs from a Broken World, which became his highest charting set in almost 40 years, debuting at #2 on the UK’s Official Album Chart.

Numan got his start in 1979 as the front-man for the synth-alt-pop band Tubeway Army – a genre-defying group that garnered the hit “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” and ignited the imagination of an audience that would swell into a devoted following.

Forty years later and Numan is still creating art that has a way of keeping its grasp on old fans while reeling in droves of new listeners. With seven Top 10 singles, including “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” and the debut solo hit “Cars”; seven Top 10 albums, three of which topped the charts; and huge critical acclaim, most notably with the Inspiration Award at the prestigious Ivor Novellos, Numan’s achievements are remarkable for someone who never made any concessions to mainstream success.

Numan’s past five albums have been an

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Lesley Daunt

Chris Corner

evolution of ever-changing themes, but so is a story that spans four decades. Decades full of momentous highs and meagre lows, such as in 2008 when Gary was diagnosed with depression. “That was difficult” he tells us.

“Part of the mechanism of getting through that, and talking about it when it was done, which in my opinion is still part of the recovery, was writing about it on Splinter. It told about the difficulties being under it, the difficulties of trying to get out of it, and the damage it can do to relationships. So, in a sense, Splinter was a very, very personal record.” Splinter (Songs from A Broken Mind) set Numan’s reemergence ball rolling by peaking at #20 in 2013 with its precise, post-industrial sound that dove into Gary’s experiences with his depression.

In 2017 he started a new deal with BMG and released Savage (Songs from A Broken World), an album which depicted Earth as a barren wasteland in which humanity and culture had been largely crushed by the effects of global warming. “Savage,” he explains, “moved into the climate change thing, but it did it in a kind of science-fiction way. With Savage, the climate apocalypse has already happened, and we’ve now gone a hundred or two hundred years into the future. What would humanity be in that environment? How brutal would it be? How savage would we become? So that record was all about the human condition should the worst happen.”

SPOTLIGHT PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 35

SPOTLIGHT

On his thematic vision for the new record: “To be spending a good part of the year working through the ideas for this record, and then for those ideas to actually happen is such a weird thing.”

“Intruder is not that” says Numan as he explains further, “Intruder looks at how the Earth feels about what is going on now, and what it might be doing about it. I’m trying to humanize it, I’m giving it a voice, which it doesn’t have.

I’m giving it feelings, which it doesn’t have. But if it did, there would be disappointment, hurt, and betrayal obviously. It would be angry, and the thing is, the real question the album keeps digging into is, will it fight back? Is it already fighting back?”

Numan says his idea for Intruder came from two different things; one being a documentary (pre-Covid) he had watched that floated the suggestion that viruses could be the way the planet fights its battles against global infestations.

“It started to dawn on me that perhaps, the 36 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

likes of Ebola and many of the other viruses, was the Earth fighting back. If the Earth sees us as an infestation, as an intruder, as an invader, then there must be a mechanism within nature to deal with that.”

His second influence was his daughter. “My daughter wrote a poem when she was 11 years old called ‘Earth’ and it was just brilliant. It was the Earth speaking to the other planets and explaining to them why it was sad and why it wanted to leave the universe. It was beautiful in a really sad way. So, I stole her idea and made it into an album.” When asked if he gave album credit to his daughter he laughed and said, “When you open the gatefold of the album cover, the first thing you see is her poem. It’s right on the album sleeve. So, she’s getting all the credit.”

The exploration into the idea of the modern world warning and fighting back against humanity’s catastrophic behavior, is especially evident in the song ‘The Gift’, which imagines Covid-19 as the first weapon that the planet deploys in order to eradicate mankind and once again flourish.

When asked if the pandemic influenced this song, Numan says, “The whole idea about how the Earth will fight back is a common thread throughout the album. But interestingly to me, I was already 3/4 of the way through the album before the whole COVID thing happened so, it was well on its way to being finished before the pandemic. The thing that was a bizarre coincidence is that then COVID happened and now we have a global pandemic, so that was a

Intruder was recorded between sessions at Numan’s home studio in Los Angeles and at producer Ade Fenton’s studio in Bath. This is the fifth studio album they’ve done together, with Fenton’s production taking Numan into a direction that was darker, fiercer, and more inventive than ever.

“While I started down this darker road with Sacrifice in ‘94, his (Fenton’s) contribution to the past five albums, and the sound of them, is enormous. I picked him up when I was about three or four albums into this second half of my career, so I was already pretty well established in that industrial, heavy electronic kind of path.

I started working with him on Jagged, which was the fourth album I think of this period, and the albums just got so much better because of his involvement. If I was to play you the demos of these albums, you would really see the difference” he laughs.

Numan and Fenton also worked together on the soundtrack and score for the John Bergin’s award-winning animated feature, From Inside.

Soundtracks, however, are something you probably won’t be finding in his portfolio again anytime soon. “One of the reasons I came over to America was I had this desire to become more involved in film music and scores and so on, and I thought, what better place to be than Los Angeles.

And then I sort of went off it, not because I had a bad experience, because I didn’t. I had a really good experience. From Inside was great. Working with Ade was great. I just realized, it takes up a huge amount of time, and I didn’t like the fact that you kind of have to bend to other people’s desires.

I’m so used to doing my own thing. You’ll spend a year working on something and think it’s perfect, then somebody will say ‘nah, not really’ and I’m like ‘What?’ I’m just not used to that.”

bit freaky to be honest. To be spending a good part of the year working through the ideas for this record, and then for those ideas to actually happen is such a weird thing.”

While anger and vengeance rage in its opening chapters, Intruder charts a wider spectrum of emotions. “Is This World Not Enough” and “A Black Sun” exude regret and then despair that this fate could’ve been avoided. The finale presents a black-hearted double-bill to bring the curtain down on the tale. First “Now and Forever” offers a hope of eternity in the end days during its theatrical intensity, before the sparse, sorrowful “The End of Dragons” ends on the chilling reminder that what’s broken can’t always be fixed. Collectively the album proves that Numan’s creative spark shows no sign of

Touring was also a big factor in that decision.

“It’s worked out great for Trent (Reznor) because he sort of pulled out of touring to devote the time to film scores and he’s very, very successful at it and doing some great stuff. I pulled out of touring briefly and I just missed it. So much. While it’s not the entire point of being in music, it’s a big one. I love the life. I love being out on the road. I like being with the friends in the band. I love the traveling. I love the gigs. I love everything about it. So, I didn’t want to give up a significant amount of that to be stuck in the studio, again, for another year, working on something that somebody else is gonna come in and say ‘No, I don’t like it. I want you to change everything.’ It just didn’t work for me in the same way it did for Trent, so I decided I wasn’t going to get involved in film work after all and just did more touring instead. I think the last album we did 130 shows and I had never done anything like that before.”

Will you be seeing a Gary Numan show anytime soon? “We actually had a British show scheduled for June, and in fact, we had a tour planned for October of last year, so this is our second tour we’ve had to cancel because of COVID lingering. At the moment, there is a North American tour penciled in for October/November into December. It hasn’t been announced yet as we have to wait and see about COVID but it’s there, the gigs are in place, the band knows all about it. So, I’m very, very hopeful that by the end of October we might be able to do something.

But it’s not certain. Although the vaccine program here is going well, there is a long, long way to go still, and there are a significant number of people in the U.S. [who] are opposed to it so that’s gonna delay the herd immunity level we need to reach. So that’s a bit frustrating. But I understand people’s reservations about getting it, but it just drags it out and makes the pain last longer. If the tour does happen, fantastic! If not, it will be pushed off until next year.”

SPOTLIGHT

being extinguished.

While touring is still up in the air, Numan is currently working on a sequel to Intruder to be released around April of 2022. “It’s like a staggered double album,” he explains. Gary Numan has consistently fought against the grain to stick resolutely to his creative vision, and Intruder is proof that his vision, as well as the fact that he is so uncompromising, is what has kept his fans fascinated. Intruder hits the shelves this May.

Follow on Instagram: @garynuman

GARY NUMAN INTRUDER STANDOUT TRACK: “INTRUDER”

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 37

GEAR REVIEWS

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES Astral Destiny Reverb Pedal

E

arthQuaker Devices built their reputation on making some really extreme and wild effects. Their Astral Destiny reverb has some very off the wall versions of pitch shifting reverb, that are simply out of this world.

Players looking for classic reverbs like spring, plate and such, go look elsewhere.

What this brings to the table is a reverb plus octave effect, which gets into some ethereal and angelic territories. There are 8 different variants available: 1. Abyss: Huge reverb with no octave effect 2. Shimmer: Adds an upper octave to the reverb tail 3. Sub: Adds a lower octave to the reverb tail 4. Sub Shimmer: Adds an upper and lower octave to the reverb tail 5. Astral: Adds an upper and lower octave combined with a regenerating tail 6. Ascend: Upward pitch bending 7. Descend: Downward pitch bending 8. Cosmos: Adds a regenerating fifth to the reverb tail Going through the controls, the preset knob allows users to save 8 versions; when you’re at a spot where you have a version of the effect you’d like to save, press both footswitches at the same time, the LED indicator light flashes four times, and that version of the effect is saved, and can be recalled. The length control is related to the 38 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

decay length of the reverb. The depth and rate knobs cover the modulation, while the tone covers the EQ response. For overall effect output, the mix control runs things, allowing the user to balance the effect versus the dry signal. Pedal nerds who get into the weeds will appreciate the choice of having the reverb trail off, even after the footswitch is pressed to disengage the effect, or the quick cut off of full bypass mode.

The stretch footswitch really pushes things, literally. It doubles the reverb’s effect time and changes the pitch of the octave effect. It can work as a momentary effect, meaning press and release for an instant shift, or hold it for a longer sweep of the effect’s transition up or down. Expression pedal control can be assigned to the function controls easily.

Plugging this in, right off the bat, was spiritual, to say the least. Those sweeping and airy synth-like pads are glorious in every mode.

Like a lot of EarthQuaker’s effects, this is not a subtle sound, but it’s quite workable overall, and anything less than these big and spacy sounds wouldn’t cut it. Adding in the expression pedal really added functional real time control.

Each setting has some serious musical possibilities, but we especially liked the sub shimmer mode, as it seemed to fit against almost anything.

In the past getting this many shimmer type

reverb effects meant a digital unit, which usually needed a specific power supply, and meant deep diving into menus and parameters. EarthQuaker kept the hands and knobs editing method, while still giving useful musical variations of this effect, and the ability to recall favorites easily. Guitarists looking to fill out a sound without having to go to a synth device, this can easily add in something new, without having to re-define their playing, or re-do their entire rig.

Chris Devine

PROS

Excellent and unique sound, easy to save settings, expression control and stretch function is quite creative CONS

None.

STREET PRICE

$199

W

ith an acoustic guitar, both in playing and manufacturing, there’s no hiding any sins; there’s no electronics or effects to mask anything, and no way to hide bad materials or workmanship. Furch (pronounced ‘furk’ in English) has been known in Europe, and recently have been making their presence known in America, and the Orange DC-SW that we got in to check out is an attention getter.

First off, it’s quite stunning right out of the box; with a sitka spruce top, and black walnut sides and back, it looked as if encased in glass with a super high polished gloss finish. It’s simplicity and minimalist branding of a single “F” on the headstock makes a bold statement, as does the combination of the maple binding and padauk purfling, which also adorns the rosette.

The neck is African mahogany, and the flower pearl inlays were also very classy, and looked great against the dark ebony fingerboard.

With a 25-9/16” scale length and a 15.75” radius, it feels nice and big. For neck adjustments it features Furch’s CNR Dual action adjustment system, which places an “anchor” like attachment inside the neck heel. Overall, the fit and finish was excellent through and through.

Picking this up it really resonates in the player’s hands, a lot. It was very responsive across the entire fingerboard, with a very rich and complex tone. It had that nice big “D” style sound profile and maintaining that WITH a cutaway is certainly an achievement. The V shaped neck profile was soft and made for plenty of enjoyment without any hand fatigue.

Upper fret access was excellent with the cutaway -speaking of frets, we couldn’t find any specs on the fret size, but these did feel a bit small-ish. Not a bad thing in any playing sense, going across the fingerboard it was a breeze and the string tension felt nice and tight, which brought an active and snappy response. This is a pure acoustic guitar, so pure in fact, there are no electronics or pickup system on-board, so keep

GEAR REVIEWS

FURCH GUITARS Orange DC-SW Acoustic Guitar that in mind. But putting up a nice Shure MV7 mic in XLR mode around the 12th fret yielded great results, with plenty of room for a player’s personal playing styles and tonal choices.

OK, it’s very well done, sounds and plays great.

But the big tipping points though are something of a personal choice and might raise some concerns; with a list price of $2988, it’s certainly not cheap.

Especially as it’s by a company that’s fairly new to the U.S. market. If you start to play the compareand-contrast game, there are some more known brands at comparable prices and quality, and some offer up a really nice piezo pickup as well.

But acoustic guitars are a personal thing, and in the right hands this an excellent guitar overall.

It’s certainly worth checking out as this could easily be a go-to instrument for a player looking for a great sounding, well-made D style sound, with stellar playability.

Highly recommended, and we look forward to seeing more from Furch in the States going forward.

Chris Devine

PROS

VERY well made, great sounding, excellent D-style cutaway.

CONS

No on-board pickup or electronics STREET PRICE

$2988

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 39

GEAR REVIEWS

H&A AC-60 Large Diaphragm Hypercardioid Dynamic Mic

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leed over is always a concern when it comes to any kind of recording, from other sound sources, or even just room reflections. H&A’s AC-60 has a fantastic and clear off-axis response that works great in vocal or instrument situations.

This isn’t the usual, USB/all-in-one mic type deal, with an XLR connection and the included shockmount, it’s more along the line of a professional level piece. The two switches on the bottom cover a low cut or bass roll off, and a midrange switch that favors the 6kHz to 10kHz frequency range, great for vocals and guitars.

We put it through its paces doing some vocal overdubs on an existing track, and found we liked having the simple flexibility of the low cut and mids, it didn’t take long finding settings that worked well. This is all dependent on the particular vocalist, music, and desired response, of course, but tweaking things shouldn’t take long. We really liked the overall clarity it also delivered.

Micing up an acoustic guitar was very pleasurable, just placing the microphone between the 12th fret and the sound hole gave excellent results, Again, the tweakability of these EQ options was quite nice, and can certainly be useful in taming lower boomy frequencies of a large D-style guitar, and enhancing the midrange response overall. On bass amps this could easily help add in that extra “air” needed, without getting flabby, and maintaining that punctuation of the notes. Kick drums that somehow seem to end up in every other frequency could also benefit from this as well.

The off-axis response was very nice; we didn’t have any issues from bounce back on our room space or other instruments. The only downside we found was that we needed to really up the input gain on our interface, especially when having the mic about a foot away from a voice, talking at a normal volume. It’s not a phantom powered unit, and we really had to get on it a bit to get a comfortable signal. Overall though it’s a nice, easy to use microphone that has plenty of practical uses for instruments and vocals.

PROS

Nice clear sound, excellent offaxis response, included shock mount CONS

Somewhat low signal strength.

STREET PRICE

$149

H&A UMP-5 Professional USB MultiPattern Condenser Microphone

A

ll-in-one, jack of all trades items often do some things well, and in other aspects seem to fall short. In the case of microphones if it doesn’t do everything well, you might be better off with multiple microphones. H&A’s UMP-5 delivers all the options in one package.

First off this is a large mic, but that makes sense, as inside the aluminum casing are five 14mm diaphragms with five selectable patterns: Cardioid, SuperCardioid, Omnidirectional, Bidirectional, and Stereo, and some fairly large knobs on the casing for pattern selection, mic gain, and headphone levels and a mute switch. At the base is a threaded mic stand connection, plus USB and headphone inputs. A large and well weighted base allows for desktop use and adjustability of angle of the microphone.

Connection was super simple, with no drivers or external software required to get things up and running. We were immediately impressed with the sensitivity of the mic right off the bat, which is something we’re not used to in USB mics. It responded like a far more expensive XLR microphone. Scrolling through all the patterns was equally impressive, with each mode offering up perfect audio examples of their respective variants.

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It runs at 16bit, and has its own D/A converters, so be sure if you’re running a session to match the bit rate in your DAW for optimum performance.

We put it through its paces in desktop mode, doing spoken word type situations, along with vocal and instruments, and we found selecting the correct mode for whatever we were doing yielded great results overall. It will react nicely in any application, but works especially well in voice overs, and in the podcasting/environment, Vloggers might appreciate the sensitivity and range of not having the mic in your face to get a strong signal. Put this mic in stereo mode for putting a singer on one side, and an acoustic guitar on the other, and duos can easily use this for easy tracking or live streaming.

PROS

Good price, multiple pattern selection.

CONS

To get nit-picky, the sensitivity was almost too much at times, and can really pick up a lot of the ambient reflections and room noise and moving it around on the mic stand generated a ton of noise, so be aware to put it on mute if it’s getting moved around during an interview. The low bitrate response might throw off some users, but for podcasts and home users it’s not a bad mic to start off with, with plenty of options for a variety of situations.

Somewhat sensitive, only 16-bit A/D convertor.

STREET PRICE

$99

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GEAR REVIEWS

H&A AC50 Cardioid Dynamic Studio Broadcast Microphone t first glance, it looks very reminiscent of an RE320, and with an all-aluminum casing it’s quite light. The capsule design is a Cardioid, and the pop filter is internally located. At the base of the mic there is a small switch allowing the user to choose between a flat or low-cut EQ option, which does reduce the low frequencies by about 10dB. First off, this is meant as a broadcast style microphone, meaning great for podcasters, voiceover artists, etc. The big signature is the offaxis response, meaning if you’re not pointing it at the sound source, the audio doesn’t get picked up.

This eliminates background noise issues as well as any problems in the room it’s being used in.

There is minimal coloring in the flat setting in vocal applications, and the low-cut filter really does drop out any flabbiness that could be present. The off-axis response is excellent as well. But one thing about a good mic is using it for other applications. We tried using it on a session with an acoustic guitar running DI and a vocalist using the AC50. It did pick up a bit of the ambient acoustic guitar, but it was minimal, and more than acceptable in a broadcast/podcast/videocast situation. There’s a lot of potential for other uses, such as drums, where the off-axis response could really help keep bleed over to a minimum when used on floor toms and kick drums.

PROS

low-priced starter studio mic.

CONS

slightly low output, could benefit from a shock mount.

STREET PRICE

$99.95

A couple of things we noted during our session -- we really had to crank the gain up on our interface’s input level to get a healthy signal and had to really “get on” the mic for vocals. With the level up this high, the capsule really picked noise from being adjusted on a mic stand, so a shock mount might be a good accessory to eliminate this issue.

With the included mic mount and padded case, it’s a pretty decent setup for $99. For users looking to start a mic locker, it’s worth a look. For podcasters and streamers looking to get out of the USB mic world, this might be your ticket...

All H&A reviews by Chris Devine

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 41

GEAR REVIEWS

PAUL REED SMITH PRS SE Custom 24-08 Electric Guitar

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onstruction wise, the new-for-2021 PRS SE Custom 24-08 body had a 3-piece mahogany back, with a solid maple cap.

Yes, the Eriza Green flame maple top is a veneer, but looks very sharp. The lower cutaway shows off the layered construction and trying to discern the separation between the maple cap and veneer was futile. The body has a shallower carve profile compared to their core model’s “violin” carve, but it still has curves in all the right places and was very comfortable playing seated or standing.

The 24-08 features a 24-fret rosewood fingerboard, which has PRS’ famous “Old School” birds. Profile wise, the 25” scale maple neck has their “wide thin” shape, with a gloss finish, and a natural headstock sporting Paul’s signature. The bridge is a steel molded version of the now classic PRS tremolo, with a pop in trem arm. It felt super silky smooth, and the rounded edges were very comfortable to rest the edge of the picking hand’s palm on top of it. The overall fit and finish was superb, the attention to detail that PRS is known for is here in amazing quantity, from the fretwork, finishing, and assembly.

Pickups are PRS’s TCI “S” treble and bass models. TCI stands for Tuned Capacitance and Inductance. In recent years, PRS has been exploring how to get better single coil sounds from humbuckers, and the TCI concept has yielded some great results. The controls are also very PRS-centric, with a master volume, master tone, and a three-way toggle. The addition of two mini toggle switches allow each individual 42 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

pickup to be put into a single coil mode.

The 25” scale balances nicely between the Gibson and Fender scale lengths, so players from both camps should have no problem getting around the neck. The 24 frets were also very nicely dressed, and regardless of where you were on the neck, it felt comfortable and easy.

Plugging it into a variety of our fave test units, such as our Fender Blues JR, ZT Lunchbox, Boss Katana, and Strymon Iridium, we had no issues getting great tones right at the start. In humbucking mode, the pickups really deliver a powerful and modern tonal experience. Together they balanced nicely and went from chunky power chords to leads easily without having to mess with EQ’s. Dialing back the gain, they had a really nice and open feel, and when going into single notes, there’s plenty of sweetness that feels balanced across the entire spectrum.

There are 8 different pickup configurations available to the player, and all are practical and musical in their own way. Many times, when multiple options are available with pickups, one or two just don’t really make sense. Not here; we found the single coil tones very sweet and still maintained unity gain and didn’t require any fussing with boosting the signal in other ways to still be heard or cut through.

So, with all these single coil modes, can it out single coil a Strat? The bridge pickup in single coil mode still had that snarl and attack, but it

wasn’t shrill or harsh, even in a bright clean tone setting. Out spank a Tele? Put one pickup in full humbucking mode, and the other in coil tapped mode, and these extra pickup combinations really added in the balance of warmth and clarity.

Overall, it’s a practical and giggable instrument right out of the box. Some import guitars need mods to make them acceptable as performing instruments, but PRS conquered that hill, and other than needing a guitar strap, it’s ready as soon as it’s tuned up.

Chris Devine

PROS

Well-made, great neck, fantastic tone, excellent pickup options.

CONS

None.

STREET PRICE

$899

GEAR REVIEWS

W

hen it comes to gear, multiples are better; guitars, amps, microphones, you get the picture. However, having a set of headphones and a separate set of In Ear Monitors (IEMs) doesn’t fall into this category of thinking. So, what if someone came up with a set of daily use headphones that could also do double duty as stage ready IEMs? That someone is Sennheiser, and their IE 100 Pro in-ears are ready for action.

Usually, the difference in high quality audio for IEMs are the drivers, and usually means multiples in each ear, with each tuned for different frequency responses. Sennheiser has figured out how to use a single driver system, and maintain clarity and definition on the low end, and not thin things out on the higher frequencies.

The two earbuds connect to either the Sennheiser IE Pro BT connector, which works as a control unit for using them in a Bluetooth configuration or the included four and a half (1.3M) 1/8” cable. With functionality for volume and speaker use, the BT connector makes taking calls easy, as well as everyday listening across your favorite devices. The Bluetooth module can be fully charged via USB in about 90 minutes and gives about 10 hours of use. Connect the ear buds to the cable, and now they can be used as a set of IEMs connecting to a belt pack or monitor connection. Rounding things out is a nice leather-ish pouch, and a series of foam and

SENNHEISER IE 100 Pro Wireless In-Ear Monitors silicone earpieces, as well as a cleaning tool and charging cable.

Putting these to practical use in an everyday setting, they’re downright excellent for listening to music overall. There’s plenty of excellent fidelity at a flat EQ setting, and when adding in external EQ, a little goes a long way. With Bluetooth 5.0 there’s no loss of signal that makes you wish for a cable. Latency isn’t an issue either, using these in a video conference we found no lag or syncing issues.

Going into a wired mode; the clarity is excellent, and the earbuds themselves are fairly light weight, with the reinforced cable ends making for a secure and comfortable fit over the ear. As we always mention, getting a proper seal is important and the foam versions fit nicely. This is also key in making sure the mix stays in your ears, with no outside sounds sneaking in. There’s no issues of ear fatigue during long sessions; the light weight and overall sound quality make them a pleasure to wear and use for extended periods of time.

PROS

Great price, great audio, practical for stage and everyday use.

CONS

None.

STREET PRICE

$149

Overall, these make a lot of sense for the musician who needs a great set of inexpensive IEMs that will get used in multiple settings that today’s musicians are running into; making a video call to a friend, listening to music, mixing a track or performing live on stage (hey, remember those?)

Chris Devine PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 43

GEAR REVIEWS

SHURE MV7 USB Podcast Microphone

S

hure’s SM7B microphone has been an industry standard in broadcasting/ overdubbing and general recording for years. Now their MV7 brings the features its older sibling is known for but adds in a lot of new features for today’s broadcasters, streamers and podcasters.

Specs-wise, it’s a dynamic mic, with a cardioid pattern, that can handle a max of 132dB, and 24-bit audio resolution. The bottom of the mic has an XLR connection as well as a miniUSB, along with headphone connections for personal monitoring. The metal yoke mount is super robust and allows for perfect positioning and adjustment.

The edge of the casing has a unique touch panel, with the ability to mute and adjust the microphone level as well as headphone levels.

The Shureplus Motiv Desktop app is key to really make optimum adjustments for using this as a USB mic. With auto leveling presets for near and far voice applications as well as EQ curves that can actually enhance a voice to make a difference, it’s a welcome companion to the MV7. For more advanced users there is a manual mode that allows one to adjust mic gain and specific EQ settings along with a limiter and compressor.

Settings can also be saved and recalled for later use.

The MV7 makes recording podcasts and voiceovers easy. The dark setting certainly adds depth and warmth that enhances overall,

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especially on the near setting on the app. For video use, such as YouTubing or live streaming, putting it in far mode on the app allows the user to get away from the mic and be seen. The overall design of the mic’s pattern rejects room and background noise, so there’s no need to be in a perfect, acousticly-treated environment to get great results.

One thing the SM7B has a reputation for is being great for vocal performances and this MV7 carries that torch as well, with the High SPL rating, doing big vocals isn’t an issue here; there’s a nice and warm low-end response overall. This also makes it very attractive to put on some midrange-y instruments such as electric and acoustic guitars to warm things up without having to mess with external EQ. We connected the MV7 via XLR into our Focusrite interface and it behaved nicely there as well. Acoustic guitars still had clarity, along with an excellent bottom end. We also didn’t have any issues using it in a fairly small room either, as the reflections were non-existent.

So, who’s this for? Well, pretty much anyone who’s serious about their voice being heard in a studio situation. Podcasters looking for a quality dedicated mic that works with a computer and tablet connectivity? Musicians are doing a lot more than music these days, and this is a mic that can cover a lot of bases without a lot of hassles for today’s content creators.

Chris Devine

PROS

Great sound mic for music and broadcasting situations.

CONS

Full functionality of desktop app not available on iPad. STREET PRICE

$249

GEAR REVIEWS

TECH 21 Geddy Lee DI-2112 Signature SansAmp Preamp Review

T

o say that Geddy Lee has a unique bass sound would be an understatement.

Whether it’s his Rickenbacker 4001 or 1972 J-bass, one note and you know it’s him.

When Geddy partnered up with Tech 21, his elusive sound became far less elusive, as the DI-2112 Preamp now shares the tone with bass players of all backgrounds.

The top mounted controls cover Level, Blend, Mid, Drive, Treble, Bass, and Mid Shift.

OK, you’re probably wondering about the “deep” section, which has its own level and saturation controls.

This area has Geddy Lee’s EQ curve set to his preference but does allow the user to tweak the level and saturation to their own taste. Simply put, it’s a dual set of signals (pun intended to the Rush fans) running in parallel: deep and drive.

A small bank of buttons cover functions such as mute, a tight option, and a +10Db boost for the 1/4” outputs, and a -20Db pad for the XLRs, and to finish it off, a ground lift switch. The blue LED indicates the power, and pulses during playing, indicating the device is outputting signal. Not only can it run on a standard 9v power supply, but for added headroom, an 18v power source is the way to go, and it can be powered from two 9v batteries as well.

The backside has the input along with a selection of 1/4” outputs, one dedicated for tuner, mix/drive, deep out, as well as dedicated XLR

outputs for the drive and deep signal paths that gives plenty of options.

Our test basses included a modest Yamaha BB404, hot-rodded Warmoth J-bass with DiMarzio pickups and Nostrand active EQ, Rickenbacker 4001, a fretless Phil Kubicki ExFactor, and of course, a Geddy Lee Signature Fender Jazz Bass. Tech 21’s manual includes suggested settings to start from thankfully, and with Mr. Lee’s “standard” setting we were blown away. Just the right balance of grit on the top end, while maintaining a warm, yet deep low end. The drive control has a very strong presence at higher settings; after 2 O’clock it really adds in the dirt!

Kicking in the tight function really added in extra definition, taming some of those lower frequencies from the drive side of things. Hotter pickups and active electronics obviously push things harder, meaning dialing the drive and some of the EQ settings back a bit overall. Passive versions really didn’t need to be pushed harder on the EQ, but when we did start digging deeper in the EQ, the audio quality was maintained with no issues on noise or hiss.

Tech 21’s background in getting great DI tones really comes through here, and makes it far easier and simpler to get those elusive natural, and classic tube-y bass sounds without extra effort or hardware.

Shooting for cleaner tones isn’t a problem

either, if you lower the drive settings, the big, and deep bass sounds still reside, with the clarity and definition. The overall audio quality is superb, and as it’s an all-analog design, there’s no issues of latency or lag.

Will it make you play like Geddy Lee? Unfortunately, no. However, that (his) sound is in there, which can give that responsive, and quite dynamic, classic driven bass tone. But there are plenty of great tone shaping options, regardless of the bass, the player, or type of music.

Chris Devine PROS

Excellent EQ flexibility, plenty of usable and practical bass drive/dirt, connectivity options galore.

CONS

None.

STREET PRICE

$329 PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 45

GEAR GEARREVIEWS REVIEWS

TAYLOR GUITARS GT 811e Acoustic-Electric Guitar

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n 2020, Taylor unveiled their new GT, Grand Theater, body style. It’s bigger than their GS Mini, but smaller than the Grand Concert size, and now with the same material choices as their 800 series instruments, it really is in the Goldilocks zone.

It starts off with a combination that can’t lose; a solid sitka spruce top, with Indian rosewood for the back and sides. The maple binding has black purfling details, while the abalone rosette is equally very nice, and completes the look of understatement being statement. With a 24-1/8” scale length the 20-fret tropical mahogany neck feels super smooth, along with the West African Crelicam Ebony fingerboard, playing any note is pure perfection. The inlays on the headstock and fingerboard are Taylor’s Element icon and are done in abalone.

Inside, the GT has Taylor’s C-Class bracing, and it allows the top to vibrate where it needs to, while maintaining its structural integrity. This also allows smaller bodied instruments to resonate in areas that they normally wouldn’t, bringing in a deeper bass response, and a focused clarity on the top end, and maintains an overall warmth that ties everything together. Normally thick glossy finishes diminish an acoustic’s ability to vibrate, but Taylor’s super thin finish allows the instrument to breathe and not be constricted.

Usually, smaller scale/smaller bodied instruments don’t get as big a tone as their larger siblings, it’s the compromise of the size. Not here -- as soon as we hit our first chord, our jaws hit the floor. For players who love the classic sound

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of a larger bodied acoustic, but maybe aren’t sized for it, this could be the one you’re looking for.

Long sessions with a big body can be tough on the picking hand, but the GT’s small size takes that issue out of the equation.

The low end was quite robust, and it didn’t get boomy on the lower strings. Open chords were very rich and had a nice top end chime that stayed musical and not something to work around.

Playability was phenomenal, as you would expect from Taylor; the ease of maneuvering around the fretboard was just a wonderful experience – so, for players who want an instrument to fight them, look elsewhere.

It sits nicely in the mix with other instruments as well; our tester played sets with his acoustic band, and the singer’s Taylor Grand Auditorium style guitar, and it was an excellent balance between the two instruments.

Electronics-wise it’s very basic, with a treble, bass and volume control, that runs Taylor’s Expression 2 System. Most acoustics place the pickup under the bridge, which means most of the sound being heard is just the string vibration.

With Taylor’s system, the pickup is behind the saddle, which brings in the tone from the vibrations of the instrument as a whole.

For the player who wants that big and rich classic big-bodied sound, without the effort or any issue, and all the details that Taylor’s known for, this is the instrument that could change everything.

Chris Devine

PROS

Excellent playability, beautiful tone, wellcrafted and detailed CONS

None.

STREET PRICE

$2999

riginally, clip on tuners just seemed, well…cheap. Like an “as seen on TV” type of thing. Over the years though, a lot of companies have taken that idea and turned them into truly practical devices. PRS has stepped up and their new headstock tuner is worth checking out.

The rubber grips on the clamp provide a solid connection to the instrument, and it has a lot of adjustability, with plenty of swivel and pivot connections. More importantly though, they all feel super robust and positive, no slop or droop when clipping it on the headstock.

PROS

CONS

STREET PRICE

Accurate, rechargeable, small robust design.

None.

$29.99

With 4 tuning modes (two strobe and two needle) it can cover acoustics, electrics, bass guitars and ukulele. There’s also a chromatic mode as well. One really great feature is the setting reference pitch mode, allowing the user to set the reference pitch, and adjust it as needed in 1Hz increments. Great if you may have to tune your instrument to track to an “unconventional” tuning reference in the studio, or just an out-oftune piano :)

The main display area is large enough to read even in bright outdoor environments, and when the pitch is achieved, the display shows the PRS Bird image, a Cooper’s Hawk. We used it on acoustic, electric and bass guitars, and had no issues getting it to work, and comparing our tuning with a pedal style chromatic tuner, we were spot on every time.

GEAR REVIEWS

O

PAUL REED SMITH PRS Headstock Tuner

One fantastic feature is that this tuner doesn’t use those little watch batteries; it’s rechargeable via the included USB cable. Charging via a computer or separate USB battery pack makes a lot of sense, and when those watch batteries die, they seem to go when the store is closed, or out of stock.

Overall, it’s a great lil rechargeable headstock tuner that’s hyper accurate, and reasonably priced. They always come in handy, and if you’re going to use one, why not one that’s made with the attention to the same detail and functionality that PRS guitars are known for?

Chris Devine

PERFORMER MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2021 47

GEAR REVIEWS

TAYLOR GUITARS GT K21e Acoustic-Electric Guitar

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aylor has been known to really blur the lines between technology and craftsmanship, as well as the traditional and forward thinking. Their GT line brings sound from larger bodied instruments into a smaller package, and taking that idea a few steps further, the K21e’s koa wood brings a different tonal palette, and some very beautiful appointments.

Hit that first A chord, and it’s just...there.

Sonically, the Koa makes a big difference in overall resonance and response. It’s not fighting itself or other instruments. Taking this to practice where another guitarist is using a spruce topped guitar, it sat very nicely in the mix. Koa certainly holds its own presence sonically with a wonderful mix of warmth and attack.

The GT body size is compact, with a 24-1/8” scale length and a smaller body style than their GC line. The big deal though is the bracing; Taylor’s been re-defining a lot of the thoughts on this, and their C-class asymmetrical design has been proven to bring a big sound to a small instrument, by letting the lower frequencies resonate, and the top and mids still have punctuation, all the while being structurally sound to the instrument.

Playability-wise, it’s a Taylor. It’s easy if you come from the world of electric necks. Usually, acoustics need big necks for projection and sustain, but Taylor figured out how to make a comfortable neck that still delivers a big-bodied tone. One big plus is the string spacing is easily something that pick players can navigate if they want to go pick-less or use hybrid picking techniques.

With a beautiful selection of Hawaiian Koa wood, it’s a serious step up from your typical acoustic. The grain pattern of our test guitar was perfection, and the finish work just enhanced it. Koa always feels like an added luxury, with more top end, more mids, and more bass. But it’s a better balance of all that extra goodness. Rock maple binding on the top and back as well as the rosette take this to the next level. With a West African crelicam ebony fingerboard, the spring vine inlay really pops visually, while the tropical mahogany neck feels phenomenal along with its 20 perfectly polished frets. Topping it all off, the Taylor logo and headstock inlay is also done in wood, while Gotoh mini tuners keep everything perfectly in tune.

Plugging this in, Taylor’s Expression System 2 is quite amazing. The pickup isn’t under the bridge, but behind the saddle, meaning it gets the attack of the note, along with the resonance of the instrument itself, while the preamp really balances things out and does it with very simple controls; treble, bass and volume.

48 APRIL/MAY 2021 PERFORMER MAGAZINE

Usually most smaller bodied acoustics don’t get the treatment of premium materials and an upgraded aesthetic, but Taylor always takes things to the next level. For players looking to invest in a perfect sounding and playing acoustic, that’s well made and detailed to the max, this is the one you’ve been saving for.

Chris Devine

PROS

Beautiful, plays amazingly well, excellent pickup CONS

Slightly pricey, but you’re not overpaying.

STREET PRICE

$4699

Audio Made Easy

AT2020USB+ Cardioid Condenser USB Microphone

20 Series USB Mics

Audio-Technica’s AT2020USB+ delivers the critically acclaimed, award-winning sound of our original AT2020, plus a USB output for digital recording and design advances for true zero-latency monitoring. Ideal for multi-track music production, content creation and podcasting, the AT2020USB+ is a natural for both instrument and voice pickup.

Capturing high-quality audio has never been easier. audio-technica.com

GOOD TO GO WHEN EVER • WHERE VER

A passion for playing means that inspiration can strike anytime, anywhere. With Elixir® Strings you know that when you pick up your guitar it’s going to sound great—time and time again. That’s because our featherweight coating protects your strings from the elements, keeping corrosion away and allowing your tone to sound great for longer, in any environment.

Elixir Strings. Performance-ready with long-lasting tone.

GORE, Together, improving life, ELIXIR, NANOWEB, POLYWEB, OPTIWEB, GREAT TONE • LONG LIFE, “e” icon, and designs are trademarks of W. L. Gore & Associates. ©2009-2020 W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.