blog.immusicstore.com

Project "X" - Update #1

2012-04-03T09:09:19Z

All the tunes have been recorded. That would include both the basic and performance versions. The initial mix for all the tunes is also completed. We will listen to them one more time this morning and then send them off to the customer for their initial review and whatever feedback they have. Normally takes two, sometimes three review cycles to get everything agreed to. Once that is done then off to the publisher it goes.

As we get a little further along in the process we will be able to share a little more about the final product including the list of tunes.

Project "X" - The beginning

2012-04-01T12:14:58Z

Starting a new customer project today. For now, lets just call it Project "X". "X" is a collection of lead sheets and arrangements for the beginning pianist who has learned how to read music and wants to play easy arrangements of familiar melodies. The CD will feature two orchestrated accompaniments for every song. The first cut is a basic version of the tune followed by a second arrangement of the same tune, which is called the "Performance" version. The second cut is played with a little faster tempo and also has additional accompaniment tracks in the arrangement.

RadioIndy Review - Jazzy Christmas

2012-01-01T13:54:18Z

Pop in the dazzling Jazz instrumental album featuring superb holiday classics on the CD, “Jazzy Christmas” by Ric Iannone as your spirits with lifted with radiant joy. This CD is comprised of a talented trio of musicians, (piano, bass, and drums) that skillfully take traditional holiday tunes and weaves them into spectacular Jazzy compositions. Opening up the album, “O Come All Ye Faithful,” grooves with a smooth and easy flowing vibe. Another song, “Deck the Halls,” has a fine bouncy beat and an excellent colorful arrangement. “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas,” has a sparkling jazzy groove with exceptionally tight precision. Taking it down a notch the song, “What Child Is This,” has dynamic power and yet a delicate tonality. If you are feeling stressed out from the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping then the outstanding holiday Jazz album, “Jazzy Christmas” is just the thing to kick back and unwind to.

-Diane and the RadioIndy.com Reviewer Team

Track Order for Jazzy Holidays - Part2

2011-10-28T13:10:29Z

Yesterday we brought up the topic of track order and how that affects your overall perception as you listen to a CD.

Jazzy Holidays was arranged and recorded with the concept of a simple Jazz Trio setting. Three musicians, three instruments:

Piano
Bass
Drums

In the first post we shared the list of tunes in alphabetical order. Since then we have come up with the following order:

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Deck The Halls
O Come All Ye Faithful
Jingle Bells
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
We Three Kings
Jolly Old St Nick
What Child Is This
We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We are going to listen in this order a few times today to see how that flows and we are still taking suggestions on track order if you would like to share your thoughts? There should be enough time today to cut a few demo tracks and upload them so you can take a listen.

CD / Song Track Order - Your Thoughts?

2011-10-26T18:08:24Z

Here's something that you might not spend much time thinking about. You just purchased a shiny new CD or downloaded an electronic version of it. As you settle down in your favorite chair, maybe with your beverage of choice, and crank up the volume to take a listen, the first track starts to play. Somewhere along the way somebody decided the track order that you hear and that track order does influence the mood and your overall perception of the the final product.

Should the first tune be up tempo or a softer selection?

So - here we sit, working on the next CD, which is a collection of Christmas tunes, considering the track order that we would like to present. On this CD, we opted for a simple Jazz Trio of Piano, Bass and Drums.

The list of tunes includes (alphabetically):

Deck The Halls
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Jingle Bells
Jolly Old St Nick
O Come All Ye Faithful
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Sugar Plum
We Three Kings
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
What Child Is This

Of course, you haven't heard them yet (but you will soon) - so it's not as easy for you to pick an order, but we are open to suggestions. What do you think - Deck the Halls or Santa Claus is Coming to Down for the first track?

Distortion

2011-10-12T12:21:58Z

Looking for a good distortion pedal to give you an extra boost? The Boss DS-1 pedal is a fantastic pedal for just that. Inexpensive and simple to use and setup.

By itself, the pedal doesn't have that good of a tone, but it works great along with the distortion you already have. If you want to give a fat boost to your down-strumming during the verse, just flip on the DS-1 and listen as the tone fills up. It will sound great as you're playing your next concert. When it comes to solo time, and you don't need to have as much distortion, it's as easy as stepping on it to turn it off and you're all set.

Do you have a favorite pedal - If so, which one?

Austin

Let's do 500 downloads

2011-10-09T12:41:17Z

We put together some Jingles that you can use for "whatever" a few months back. Put them on your website, put them in your PowerPoint Presentation, you can even make a ring tone out of them if you want. They are zipped up into groups of 10 Jingles, vary in styles, and range from 15 seconds to around a minute in length. Free for the taking…. Enjoy.

We are getting close to hitting 500 downloads. For those that have downloaded and tried them tell us more about what you used them for?

For some reason we stopped at Jingle 71. As time permits we might as well record a few more and make it to a nice even 100 Jingles. As we start to do that - do you have a favorite style that you would like to see more of?

Here's Jingle56 from the IMMusic Inc. Jingle51-60 collection.

Not what you are looking for? There are plenty more available to pick from on the Jingle page. Download the whole collection and lets see if we can get to the magic 500 download number this week!

Pandora - Here we come!

2011-10-08T15:50:28Z

In a recent post we mentioned there was still one more detail we were working on related to the release of the Happy Holidays CD on Amazon. Earlier the week we were notified by Pandora that the Happy Holidays CD has been accepted and will be available on their service very soon. So there you have it, the super-hush-hush secret we were not able to tell you about until now. Very exciting stuff - Well, at least for us it is!

Amazon has some short demos or you can check out the demos we put together over on Soundcloud. We posted the list of tunes a while back for your review. Take a look and see if we included one of your favorites?

If you are interested in the steps required to submit your work for consideration by Pandora, you can learn more on their blog located at blog.pandora.com/faq

Make sure to listen for us later this year during the upcoming holiday season!

Guitar Strings - So Many Choices

2011-10-07T14:31:45Z

Got a new acoustic guitar? Want a new sound from your current guitar? Something as simple as changing your strings can give a whole new feel and sound to your guitar.

If you want a brighter sound to your guitar I highly recommend getting Elixir guitar strings. They provide some of the brightest tones in the industry. An alternative - check out the coated Ernie Ball strings which will also provide a bright tone.

If you prefer a warmer, richer tone you have a number of choices. You can choose from Martin strings, Gibson strings, Fender strings, the earthwood strings from Ernie ball, or DR acoustic strings. All provide a warm tone to them.

You don't have to pick between bright sounding strings or warm, rich sounding strings. What if you want something that offers both? Diaddario strings are your best bet, or try Yamaha strings which also offer a nice balance between warm and bright tone.

At any point please ask any questions you might have and I'd be more than happy to answer them for you.

Austin

Guitar Strings - Do you have a favorite?

2011-10-05T11:55:14Z

Hi guys, This is Austin and I'm glad to be here posting my first entry on the IMMusic Inc. blog. Let's jump right in!

Have you ever been into your local guitar shop and seen Nanoweb and Polyweb Elixir guitar strings, but never knew the difference? Well, here are some fun facts about each.

First, we are just dealing with Elixir Acoustic Guitar Strings. We will talk about Elixir Electric Guitar Strings in a future post. In general, Elixir strings will give you a very bright tone and would be perfect for Taylor guitars. In fact, Taylor guitars come with Elixir strings on them from the factory. These are a great choice if you're looking for a bright tone from your guitar, regardless of the manufacturer.

With Polyweb strings you get what Elixir calls the "original" coating. The coating on these strings makes them pretty slick allowing you to easily slide your hand up and down the fret board in order to quickly play bar chords. Some of you may find as the strings start to reach the end of their life, the coating starts to peel or flake off where you strum the guitar leaving white flakes over the body your guitar. None the less they are some of the most popular and widely used strings in the industry.

Nanoweb strings have a thinner coating then the Polyweb strings do. Because of this, you can feel the grooves of the strings more than on the Polyweb strings. They also have a warmer tone to them in comparison to the Polywebs and don't tend to flake in the same way the Polyweb strings do.

Comment back with your favorite stings.

We Have A New Team Member!

2011-10-04T15:34:40Z

We are happy to announce the newest member of the IMMusic Inc. team. Welcome, Austin Magura. Austin will be leading a new division of the company focused on guitars, drums, and PA speaker systems. Austin will be splitting his time between IMMusic Inc., working as a musical instrument specialist at a local music retailer, and taking classes working towards an Audio Production degree. Surrounded by music all his life, he enjoys both playing and working with musical instruments.

An exciting time for both Austin and IMMusic Inc. Everyone say hello to Austin!

Name This CD

2011-10-03T10:56:41Z

We are hard at work on a new project and need your help in coming up with a title for our next CD. In no particular order, here's a list of the tunes so far. Based on the run times we expect to add another 4-5 tunes but this should give you an idea of the content:

Romance
Can Can
Prelude in C Major
Chopin Valse Op.64 No. 1
Minuet in G Major
Moonlight Sonata- 1st movement
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik- First movement excerpt
Musetta's Waltz
Ave Maria
Finlandia- Theme

If your suggestion is selected for the CD title, we will ship you a free copy of the CD for your efforts once it is released to production.

Leave your ideas in the comments section or if you prefer, e-mail us at sales@immusicstore.com

We Need Your Help -- Name This CD

2011-10-02T21:10:27Z

Although there is still one detail we are working on related to the new Happy Holidays CD recently released, we are on to our next project, which will be a collection of classical tunes.

We are still working on the list of tunes that will be on that CD and we think it will between 10-15 tracks. We need your help in naming the new CD.

If we select your suggestion for the CD name, we will send you a free copy of the CD after it is released, along with full credit of how we came up with the name. Post back your name suggestions via the comments section of this post with your CD name ideas.

We will be posting the final track list over the next few days. For now, we can say that there will be a few Mozart and a few Bach pieces.

Happy Holidays - Released

2011-09-23T22:00:22Z

In the past few posts we told you a little about our latest CD titled Happy Holidays. The CD is now available on Amazon. If you prefer, you can also purchase individual tracks, or the whole album in MP3 format from Amazon.

Ho-Ho-Ho!

Happy Holidays Update #7 - O Come All Ye Faithful Demo

2011-09-18T18:28:30Z

Well, we are back in "hurry up and wait mode". Since we are dealing with multiple websites / vendors we are waiting on website 1 to be updated so website 2 will acknowledge the update and allow us to go on to the next step.

While we all wait take a listen to a clip from track 5 - O Come All Ye Faithful.

Happy Holidays Update #6 - Silent Night Demo

2011-09-18T13:43:43Z

Sitting down to fill out the last set of forms and paperwork for the super secret part of the Happy Holidays release that we can't tell you about just yet. For now, here's a short demo of Track 4 - Silent Night.

Happy Holidays Update #5 - Jingle Bells Demo

2011-09-17T21:23:37Z

Yes, we did click on the "Publish Button" earlier today. We will have three sales channels coming online. So far, one of the three are active. As soon as all three are live you will be the first to know. Until then, a short demo on a tune everyone knows - Jingle Bells.

We would love to hear your feed back and comments.

Happy Holidays Update #4

2011-09-17T16:08:07Z

Got a package in the mail today - Yep, it is the CD proof! It got here quicker than expected. Listening to it right now and checking the timings for each track to ensure they match up with what is printed on the CD insert, along with checking the spelling on the song titles. So far, so good. We are on track 3 of 10 right now. If all goes to plan we should be hitting the "Releasing to Production" button later this afternoon!

Once that is done it will be a few days until you can order a copy. We will certainly share with everyone how and where you can do that along with one other piece of news. We don't want to leak that out to early as there area few more details being worked out on that. It's still "Hush-Hush" for now.

To review the track list see this post.

Happy Holidays Update #3 and Another Demo

2011-09-14T23:57:14Z

We are one step closer to getting this baby released! The last e-mail we received was to alert us regarding issues with the graphic layout for the CD inserts. Looks like we got that fixed.

Check out today's email: "Congratulations, the source and artwork files for Happy Holidays have been reviewed and meet submission requirements."

How 'bout that! So, onto the next step. In the next few days we will receive a physical copy of the CD packaged in a Jewel Case including all the artwork. Trust me, the artwork is very generic almost to the point of plain and boring but this is really about the music which we hope you enjoy. Once we review both the physical copy, the layout, spelling, and take one more listen to all of the tunes we will say "Approved". That will be the green light to release to production and we will be able to share information on how to order or download your own copy.

Here's a short clip from track 2 - It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. Take a listen and post back your comments.

Happy Holidays Update #2

2011-09-13T07:14:06Z

In the past we released CD's 100% as our own production. We burned them, printed them, packed and shipped them. This time around we are releasing through retail outlets and finding some additional steps that need to be followed to run with the big boys!

A CD? You mean one of those shiny round things? Yes, there are still a few folks that want something physical to touch and hold, although we will also offer Happy Holidays as a download for those that don't even know what a CD is anymore, much less vinyl! Since this time is a bit of a different process, we are posting a few notes as we go, along with some of the things that we are learning.

Here's the first, a minor detail but still needed some attention. Just fixed the artwork and re-submitted. Hopefully this only slows the release down for a day or two. Opened e-mail to find a "Rejected" notice and:

The tray card outside image contains live elements that may be trimmed during the production process. Please ensure all text is within the "safe zones" as seen in the artwork templates. Additionally, all elements you wish to appear on the printed artwork, such as text and graphics, need to appear within the live graphics area. Only background that can be cut off should extend through the bleed area.

Let's just say that Graphic arts is not one our strong points! Hopefully we got it right this time.