New Songs

Hi Guys,

I'm a newbie to this forum so let me take this opportunity to say howdy.

At the moment, I'm working on a demo and have two new songs up on my myspace page--Buena Vista Park and Solitude. BV Park is pretty much done--just a couple of minor tweaks left to do. Solitude is a rough mix and I'm going to do a little more to the pre-choruses on it. I'm going to finish that one on Tuesday if all goes well in the studio. If you get a chance to listen, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

My website is under construction still, but they are up on my myspace page: www.myspace.com/rachelmargaretmusic

Thanks so much for listening!

Best wishes!

Rachel

Hey,

Thanks for the complement! I just listened to Azure Ray for the first time--nice! When I did the first arrangement of that song, someone said it sounded a bit like Mazzie Star. It's really changed a lot since then, so it probably doesn't now.

This year I've been working on my sound a lot. Some of my songs have more acoustic on them, like Azure's. A couple of them - Danger, and Things Fall Apart will be more in this vein when they get re-arranged. Danger sounds a bit like a David Gray song. But people say my voice sounds a bit like the Cowboy Junkies' singer on that one. I guess it's the key it's in or something--it's hitting a certain spot in my voice.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the local dj's re-mixed buena vista park - it was so cool! It's so interesting to hear how someone else would approach it.

As for Solitude, I'll probably take it down tonight. The vocals still need some mixing/compressing/eq-ing. But I should be done with that by Tuesday. I'm also going to do a tiny bit more to the pre-chorus, because it's sort of sudden when the chorus hits. I might add a little bit of feedback--I'm kind of a feedback queen.

About the second song, I'm not sure what's going on with the myspace player--it's pretty wonky sometimes.

Thanks again for listening!

Rachel

Hey,

Solitude is a joint-production with Bonnie Hayes (she wrote Have a Heart for Bonnie Raitt). Some of the tracks were recorded at my house, most of the vocals and guitars were done at her house, and she helped me mix them. I like the way she mixes--especially vocals. (which will sound better when they get the Bonnie touch on them).

We both have Protools, but she has a few plugins, (for example, a great compressor called Smack! that is not on there yet) that I don't have. And I love her korg so a few of the synth sounds are from that.

I use Kontakt for strings and synths and stylus or my loop library for drum loops. And occasionally I use some outboard synths from my casio. The strings, e pianos and a couple of the acoustic pianos in kontakt are awesome. But for other synth sounds, I like korg better.

And I love to play around and manipulate the synth sounds with the protools plugins.

Hope that wasn't TMI.

Rachel

Hey, thanks! That's fine.

Tanzy,


My music is copyrighted and has been for a while now. I read the TOS. Despite what it says, if someone's song has been taken from myspace and put somewhere else without their permission, then myspace could get sued for that. They don't own outright copyright to all performances of the songs on myspace--if they did, no major band would be up there. If they are selling artists--signed or unsigned without their permission, then those artists need to sue. I know a major, signed artist on myspace, who has told me that they still own the copyright to their work. They signed the same TOS I did.

Thanks,

Rachel

p.s. Are you talking about the myspace featured artists? The artist I spoke to said her lawyer said that TOS only applies to the one performance on myspace. If your music goes in a film, tv, or elsewhere, it's your money.

If you agree to let myspace promote you as a featured artist, you might be signing your life away. I will probably never plan on letting them do that.

Well, I know what you mean--the TOS does sound funny. But I think it's just a badly written contract. Perhaps they need a good legal writer?

Personally, I think that by putting that in the TOS, myspace is setting themselves up to do is sell your songs on your page - they are already doing it through a 3rd party.

If they own the copy of the song, then they get to deduct a percentage for the publishing rights. But I don't believe they could get away with taking everything. Major labels would never let their artists sign up for myspace if that were the case.

Every time your work appears in a film on radio or anywhere else, you are entitled to compensation.

If your friends have been mistreated, they should seek redress. If that TOS was truly meant to deceive unsigned artists into giving up their rights, it would not stand up against a class action. And ASCAP would be the first one to sue. They hate that kind of thing.

About the only instance I can think of where someone could have a problem with myspace is if they sign up for the myspace featured artist. There is additional paperwork involved with that from what I can tell. One of their agents contacts you if you request to be a featured artist.

They could be putting in wording into a contract that says they can use the recording in a compilation. I think they would have to get that specific, though.

Best wishes!

Rachel