When a band is busy, things can go haywire pretty fast. There are many difficulties associated with staying organized during the touring, performing, writing and recording processes. Wil Padley, a bass player in the U.K. band The Domino State, came up with the idea for BandCentral to help him and his fellow musicians attempt to bring order back into their lives.

BandCentral is an easy way to manage your band online from anywhere in the world. The tools lets bands track their earnings and expenses from merchandise, CD and ticket sales. The admin controls allow for privacy settings to be altered, so that different access levels can be given to different members of the group as needed.

It’s also integrated with SoundCloud, which is an online place musicians can share their music and files. It also lets them comment on the various things they have in progress.

BandCentral has a free version, which is ad-supported. A band can sign up for the premium account to have full access to the site and services without having to look at ads. The premium account is about $9.00 (U.S. dollars) per month.

BandCentral is used by bands, managers and even record companies. It is a “shared space with all the tools you need to manage your band: everything, from gigs & rehearsals, assets & fans, to recordings, merchandise & money… all from one central, secure and instantly accessible place.”

Organize Your Band with BandCentral

My mouth hit the floor when I read the title of this thread earlier on Geeks. A drawback to being a Geek – what?! Are you kidding me? Being a Geek is the best possible thing to be. We have it all – brains, looks, girls… what more could we want? The looks, well, just because they are funny looks at times means nothing. It’s just part of the total package that makes us so amazingly perfect, right? And the girls – ahhh, the girls – we all know that Geek boys get all the girls, right? Wait, what? You have trouble finding a girlfriend? Well, perhaps if you showered more often, and stopped being so nervous around the fairer sex. Fine. The looks and the girls may be lacking. But we have the brains! And the brains get us the money! And the money gets us more Geeky gadgets! Who needs girls, anyway?

Ok, time to get serious here, my fellow Geeks. Do you actually feel there are drawbacks to being a Geek? I’m interested in hearing your answers. For me – life is good when you’re a Geek. I’m comfortable with who, what and how I am… and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I know that not everyone would agree, so let’s have it.

• We’ll take a cup of whatever Congress is drinking.
• Small dogs do a big job.
• Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
• Are you a social musician?
• An easy-to-understand chart explains Windows licensing requirements.
• Braid is winding its way to the Playstation Network soon.
• Freaks, Geeks and Nerds – who are you?
• Verizon will be nearly doubling their termination fee.
• Is AMD headed in the right direction?
• Researchers unlock the “sound of learning”.

There are hundreds of excellent titles available at our downloads site, including games and other fun things to do!

[awsbullet:social media music]

Are There Any Drawbacks to Being a Geek?

A few days ago, I blogged about a musician in our community named David Crandall. I was blown away by what he does, and how good he is. I was also (apparently wrongly so) surprised to find we had such a talented musician in our little Geek community.

As I said… I was wrong to assume! I heard from several of you out there, all doing the same types of things as David!! Who knew we had all of these people among us making music, laying down tracks and jamming every day!? I certainly didn’t – but I do now!

• Nathan Wills

• Joe Mac

• Brian Angulo

• Matt Madoni

• Anas Kattabi

• Geoff Smith

Our Community Playlist

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I was taking some live calls the other night when David Crandall called in. He said that he’s a musician, and wanted me to check out his MySpace music page. I did – and was blown completely away! Who knew we had such amazing talent right in our chat room?

His latest song took about 48 hours to write and record. He does all of the instruments and the vocals himself, including the mixing! You have to listen to it… this stuff is seriously excellent. I am honestly, literally blown away.

David uses Audacity to do the mixing, and also uses FL Studio. He forms his own synth sounds using software, as well. As we’re talking, I clicked on another one of his songs, where he’s singing. I was speechless, as was Kat.

David has serious talent, guys. Keep an eye – and an ear – on him!

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Are There Musicians in Our Community?

From “shaggysi0” in our live chat:

I really love music. I play guitar and bass and use the PC as a recording tool, currently running Adobe Audition for music production, which I find is a good, feature-packed, but easy-to-use application. About a year and a half ago, I was looking for a place on the web to share music that I had created. I was already familiar with SoundClick but the interface just didn’t do it for me….

I stumbled across iCompositions. I had a look round and signed up almost immediately, because I was impressed with the layout, the content, and the simple-but-attractive interface. The website is aimed mainly at… wait for it…. Macintosh users producing music with GarageBand and other production tools for the Mac. They don’t, however, discriminate you if you’re not using a Mac! But so many of the community members have recommended GarageBand and mac in general for music production.

This website opened doors for me, because community members comment and rate yours and each others work, and they also offer to “collaborate” with you, maybe on a remix, play an instrument on a piece already recorded, vocals on an instrumental, or whatever you want, really! It’s like going into a studio with some really talented musicians but all done from the comfort of your own home. I have written and recorded several collaborations with members of the community, and have made a couple of good friends on there. I think that, for music, this could be the way forward! Especially with a good community like iCompositions, which is my main “home-base” for sharing my musical work.

What are your views and opinions on this? and do you think this is worth doing some kind of video on, maybe to bring attention to this and other communities for people who are budding musicians (there can’t just be me in the chat surely?!)

Thank you for what you do in the tech community. See you later.

Hey, I’m all for sites and services that give you opportunities previously unattainable. I can tell you that when I put out the call for a weekly giveaway theme, we received a handful of very usable creations almost immediately.

Web Music Communities for the New Musician

Dave Dederer, best known as guitarist and singer for the Presidents of the United States of America, was born on October 5, 1964. An alumnus of Seattle, Washington’s The Bush School and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, he founded the Presidents with fellow Bush School alumnus Christopher Ballew, with whom he had been playing in various bands since 1984. He has also been a member of the Gents and Loaded with current Velvet Revolver bassist and former member of Guns N’ Roses Duff McKagan, also a Seattle native, and Subset, a collaboration between the Presidents and Sir Mix-a-lot. Dederer currently performs as one half of the duo Carrie and Dave with noted Seattle-area singer Carrie Akre.

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While he has stepped away from touring with the Presidents, Dederer is still involved in the band’s business affairs. In this capacity, Dederer is actively engaged in exploring new modes for music distribution on the Internet and on mobile phones; he has presented on this topic at a number of events, including Podcast Hotel and Gnomedex. This activity led to his hiring in January 2007 by Seattle mobile media company Melodeo. He previously worked for three years as a public affairs consultant at Seattle firm Pyramid Communications. [Via Wikipedia]

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Future of the Music Industry