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Live Musician Central – Weekend Album Picks 3-7-09

Every week on Live Musician Central we pick the top new album releases for the week. How do we determine the top album releases? We base it solely on the level of music industry marketing behind the album. These releases may not be our personal favorites but they are being pushed like crazy by the music industry. How does that help us as live performing musicians? It keeps us in the loop with the rest of the industry and also serves as a reference to what’s going to be played by radio, tv and dj’s across the nation. That can help your band with song selection for building your set lists or programming your break music that you play during band breaks. It’s a fact that marketing by the music industry plays a huge part in what people in general are listening to. That can help your band appear on top of the scene by playing songs that people are going to be familiar with. We do put some classic albums and personal favorites up as well.

We feature MP3 downloads from Amazon.com because of their extremely high quality (256kbps MP3) and excellent pricing. You can save a bundle downloading from Amazon.com and everything you download from them is DRM free and can be played on multiple music players including iPods and iPhones.
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Tips For Buying Used Musical Instruments On eBay

Buy The Fender American Stratocaster On eBay

This week on Live Musician Central I’ve been doing several posts on the recent Fender price increase. In case you weren’t aware, Fender musical instruments increased prices by as much as 30% at the beginning of March, 2009. This will have a big effect on all live performing musicians who use Fender products. I wrote a post earlier this week about how the Fender price increase affects working musicians. These instruments are the tools of our trade and I personally like using good tools but I don’t want to spend every penny of my earnings on them. That’s why I’ve been putting up posts this week with links for buying Fender guitars and Fender amplifiers on eBay. Buying used instruments on eBay is a great way to pick up some excellent instruments for decent prices. I’ve bought and sold a lot of equipment on eBay over the years and I’ve learned some tips and tricks for getting decent deals from good sellers on eBay. Today we’re going to discuss some tips and guidelines for buying used instruments on eBay.

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Beat The Fender Price Increase. Bid On Used Fender Cyber-Twin Amplifiers

It’s tough enough to survive as a performing live musician without having to fork over all your hard earned pay for a good amplifier. Since Fender jacked the prices up on the Fender Cyber-Twin SE amplifier by a whopping 30% they’re even farther out of reach for a lot of working musicians. I don’t know about you but the clubs sure aren’t paying me 30% more this year and I don’t expect that they will anytime soon. So that leaves us searching the excellent used equipment market. Check out the eBay listings below and you just may find the Fender Cyber-Twin amplifier of your dreams. The original Cyber-Twin amplifier is a lot more common used than the Cyber-Twin SE. The original is still a great amplifier and you can pick them up for a great price on eBay. Keep an eye on these listings though because Cyber-Twin SE’s do pop regularly. The listings below are a great way to find the original Cyber Controller which is the MIDI controller that you can use with the amp as well. If you purchase a Fender Cyber-Twin SE remember to come back here to Live Musician Central for some great sound preset patches you can download to program into your amplifier. Check out the Fender Cyber-Twin SE Preset Download page to hear sound clips of this amazing amplifier.
[phpbay]Fender cyber twin, 10[/phpbay]
AC/DC Live With Legendary Bon Scott

Yes AC/DC really is one of my favorite live bands of all time. It was truly a sad day when lead singer Bon Scott died from choking on his own vomit after a long night of heavy drinking. Let that be a lesson to you to never leave a totally drunk, passed out band member unattended while they’re unconcious from the alcohol. All they need is a friend to roll them over if they let the ol’ stomach contents fly.

That being said, while Bon Scott captained the AC/DC ship it was truly a rocking site to behold. I hope you enjoy todays clip of AC/DC playing “Let There Be Rock” live at Golders Green, England in 1977. Long live Bon Scott wherever he may be! (more…)
Beat The Fender Price Increase And Buy Used Guitars On eBay

Let’s face it, as a group we live musicians are hurting just as much as anyone else during this economic crisis. The number of available gigs are going down because people just aren’t going out to the clubs and spending like they used to. I don’t know about you but my pay for gigs hasn’t increased in quite a few years. The only way to make more money is to have a smaller band and as much as I like playing in a trio, I much prefer playing in a 4-piece band.

So with Fender’s painful price increase in full effect, I thought it would be nice to dedicate a post to some of the great deals you can find on eBay on used and new Fender equipment. Feel free to browse the listings below and then get out there and bid on some auctions. Maybe you’ll score a great deal on the guitar of your dreams!
[phpbay]Fender american deluxe, 10[/phpbay]
Fender Price Increase And How It Affects Working Musicians

Matt Plays His Gibson Les Paul Custom

Yes fellow musicians it’s true, Fender musical instruments has raised prices on their professional level instruments by approximately 25%. That means the American Deluxe Stratocaster you’ve been saving up to buy for $1249.00 is now going to cost you $1599.00. That’s quite a painful price increase when you’re saving up your hard earned gig money to buy a professional level Stratocaster. Is it fair for Fender to do this? Of course it is, this is America and you can charge whatever the market is willing to bear. As always, it’s the choice of the musician’s to buy or not to buy and it’s going to be very interesting to see how this is going to affect buying choices.

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Sunday Funnies – Yngwie Malmsteen Video Lesson

This is one of the funniest “shreds” type videos because whoever did the voice overdub says the most hilarious things. If you’ve ever heard or read Yngwie’s interviews from his younger days then you’ll remember how full of himself he used to be. He still is but he’s learned a tiny touch of humility over the years but in this clip parody it’s back to the good old “I’m your new God” Yngwie days. So have a good laugh at this custom Yngwie Mamlsteen video lesson. (more…)
Live Musician Central – Weekend Album Picks 2-28-09

Every week at Live Musician Central I pick some of the top new releases available for you to download from both iTunes and Amazon.com music service. These new release choices reflect the heaviest music industry marketing. There are a couple of reasons I post up the most heavily music industry marketed albums. First, by checking out these releases you’ll be able to keep a finger on the pulse of the mainstream music industry. It’s music industry is a very powerful business that heavily influences peoples buying choices. The second reason is that a large number of people are going to know these albums. So if your band is looking for new music to put in your bands setlist these would be good choices simply because your chance of people knowing the songs at your shows will be very high. You’ll also look very on top of things and current with your knowledge of music. So these albums are a great resource for your song selection. I will also post up links to some top selling albums of all time for the reason of song selection as well.

I use links to both iTunes and Amazon.com. iTunes is now the top music retailer in the U.S. so it goes without saying that people are going to be downloading their recommended new releases. I put links up from Amazon.com because their music service is an incredible bargain and their MP3’s are DRM free. You can save a bundle downloading entire albums from Amazon.com instead of iTunes. Amazon.com MP3’s are also ripped at an excellent sounding 256kbps and since they’re DRM free you can play them on multiple MP3 players including iPods and iPhones.
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Creating Sonic Space Between Instruments Before Mixdown

Bill and Frank work out parts in the practice room.

How many times have you spent a lot of time recording your new masterpiece only to come to the mixdown and finding that there are way too many low frequencies? It sucks when you get to mixdown and you have to filter out frequencies on the bass guitar just so it will have some presence in the mix. Having too many low frequencies in the mix is something that you will struggle with at your live shows as well. The biggest cause of too many low frequencies that I have found over the course of my live and recording career is the simple fact that the players in the band are playing in the same frequency range as each other at the same time. I’m not talking about lovely unison lines but when two or more instruments are playing different parts at the same time in the same frequency range.

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Sennheiser HD 380 Pro Headphones Review

Sennheiser HD380 Pro Headphones

I’m not only a live performing musician but a studio musician and producer as well. I have tried dozens of different headphones over the years and almost invariably breathed a sigh of relief when an old pair died just so I would have an excuse to buy another pair. It seemed like finding the perfect pair of headphones was like searching for the holy grail. To be honest, I still haven’t found that perfect pair of headphones but I have found a couple headphone solutions that have kept me satisfied for a while now.

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