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learning opportunities. For example, one of this year’s more interesting panels was entitled “A Guide to Recording Music Online” and explored online music collaboration sites through which you can record, mix and distribute collaborative multitrack recordings. If you thought you live in too small a town with no musicians that really share your vision, think again! There was also a “Mastering Tutorial” where you could gain valuable information on how to master your own music, if you really can’t afford a mastering engineer. Furthermore there were panels about recording techniques and there were mentor sessions where you could have a one-on-one conversation with a producer, engineer, manager, label person or artist, and ask all the questions you ever wanted to ask about how to make the best out of your career.

issue of Recording more or less know how I feel about that, and this year I had a chance to further investigate the subject through some very interesting panels. The most interesting ones on the subject were “How Will We Listen to Music in 2020” (with Soundcloud founder Alexander Ljung amonst others), “The Cloud vs. the Paradise of Infinite Storage” (with one of my favorite speakers, McGill University professor Sandy Pearlman, amongst others), and “Five Possible Futures for the Music Industry”, which was maybe my favorite panel of the entire conference. In case you were wondering, the debate seems to still be around monetization and, still, nobody has any answers yet. Also nobody really talked about how music is going to change, if it will be re-invented, or maybe ruined, by mind-boggling new music-de(con)struction technologies such

Austin hosts a world of music
“My name is Marc Urselli and I am a SXSW-ist. I enjoy long walks around Austin and meeting fellow music lovers. My last sip of week-long music was a few weeks ago and I’ve been sober way too long.” If there were “SXSW-ists Anonymous” meetings, my introduction would probably sound something like that. Who goes there? The town is abuzz! One year short of its 25th anniversary, the annual film/interactive/music & madness extravaganza took Austin by storm, and this year’s opening day of the music portion coincided with Saint Patrick’s Day, so it was really more like a hurricane than a storm! The crowds of the first night of the music conference were a mix of greenclothed young drunken spring breakers, grungy leathered long-haired musicians carrying instruments, short-haired geeky and stylish professionals from the previous week’s interactive conference enjoying their last night in Austin, and whitehaired (from worrying too much) music industry veterans. Although attendance was up from 11,700 registrants last year to 13,000 this year despite the recession, in general it seemed like there were somewhat fewer people on the streets. Why go there? As SXSW is primarily a conference to learn and research, meet and greet, listen and play, as an independent recording artist and musician you will find many relevant
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RECORDING MAY 2010

SXSW 2010 R eport
and a world of opportunity
as Melodyne Direct Note Access, which once refined could potentially take the industry for a tailspin. Panels are starting to sound alike across all the conferences I’ve attended, so I was very picky this year and only chose the following: “Producers Adapt and Survive”, “Effective Online Marketing Platforms”, “1000 Digital Tools & Downloads: Which 3 Work?”, “Social Networks and the Future for Musicians”, “What Comes Next in the World of Marketing Music?”, “A Social Media Case Study of LA’s Sunset Strip”, “Tax Tips for Musicians and Songwriters”. I can report that while I heard that Interactive was all about geolocation, the hot word of the year 2010 in Music appears to be “superfan” (the people who are willing to give you the most info about themselves... the people you must find or create if you are an artist!). Last but not least, if you are a musician, especially a guitar player, you cannot miss the Texas Guitar Show, which happens inside the Austin Convention Center, within SXSW (just like the Flatstock concert poster convention and the Austin Record Convention) and is free to anyone. The guitar show is an opportunity to browse literally thousands of guitars and basses, buy, sell, trade and even receive freebies such as strings, straps and picks... Words before music Everyone mingles and applies the principles learned in Dale Carnegie-type books. One of the people who really learned that lesson well and enjoys spreading the teachings is CD Baby founder Derek Sivers, whose panel “Successful SXSW: The Tao of the Conference” was the absolute perfect way to start it all (and which you can and should watch at sivers.org/sxsw). As a recording engineer and producer I go to SXSW every year to network, meet people and discover new bands, but maybe even more importantly research the trends of the music industry, speculate on its future and enjoy its present. Those of you who have read my guest editorial “The New Now of Music” in the November 2009

By Marc Urselli

http://www.sivers.org/sxsw http://www.sivers.org/sxsw

Recording - May 2010

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