Hi! I’m Gordon McNeil! In 2014, I was touring with the world’s leading Queen Tribute band “One Night Of Queen” fronted by Gary Mullen (winner of TV show Stars In Their Eyes) It was touring pretty much for a full…
Music Publishing Essentials: Everything You Need to Know
If you aspire to earn income on your compositions, music publishing is one of the most important–and least understood–aspects of the music business. It’s how songwriters make the majority of their money, and how they’re able to earn royalties when…
12 Incredible Songwriting Tips that Work
As musicians, we spend the bulk of our time improving on what we do. We’d probably all agree that every new project we start (and sometimes never finish!) is a step towards getting better at songwriting. While there isn’t a…
How to Overcome Writer’s Block: 10 Tips and Tricks Used by Pros
It’s something that every creative has experienced and will likely face again: the feeling of being totally out of ideas. Inspiration comes to a halt, and starting or finishing a project seems like an insurmountable task. Writer’s block is discouraging and…
Top 10 Home Studio Essentials for Beginners
An efficient home studio set-up is essential for producers, engineers, and musicians of any level. And luckily, the time has never been better to get into the game. Rapid advances in digital technology over the past decade have made home…
10 Things No One Tells You About Music Production
1. Your first attempts at making music will not be that good! It’s ok! My first productions were atrocious! Knowing what I know now I wish I had created more songs and spent less time trying to perfect the ones…
How to Mix Music Using 5 Simple Elements
Mixing music requires both technical ability and the creativity to try things that would make a song compelling and interesting to listeners. Mix engineers firstly possess the technical knowledge of audio signal flow, DAW and/or console operation, and how to…
7 Stock Pro Tools Plugins Covering All the Basics
Whether a DAW boasts an impressive selection of stock plugins can be a deciding factor when the time comes to choose. If you’ve picked Pro Tools, you’ll have access to over 60 plugins right out of the box. Luckily, stock…
The Best Free Audio Editors in 2018
Regardless of the type of audio you’re working with, there’s a good chance you’ll want software to help you mix, edit, or directly record the source. It doesn’t matter whether you’re producing music, podcasts, or audio to sync with video;…
6 Steps in Becoming a Better Songwriter
The path to improvement as a songwriter is an on-going, ever-evolving process. As a craft, songwriting is highly individualistic, dictated by a host of personal characteristics. The instrument(s) you play, the genre(s) you most enjoy, and your technical and creative…