P5audio is proud to release two new Techno Deep House and Vintage House products….

Vintage House Kicks

- 151 Vintage House kicks drums in 24 bit WAV, 44.1 kHz.

- All analog sourced.

- Processed with NEVE EQ and Empirical Labs FATSO compression.

- Formatted for popular software samplers.

View the Vintage House Kicks product page.

Audio Demo:

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/80395483" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

Techno Deep House Virus TI2 Patches

- 128 custom Techno Deep House, Tech House, Dubstep and Big Room style patches.

- Emphasis on lead and bass sounds.

- Inspired by DJs Omid 16B, Christian Smith, Rob Acid and more.

View the Techno Deep House Virus TI2 Patches product page.

Hello Music Producers!  Sorry for the delay, we finally picked our winner.  WAS NOT EASY!  Because of the bonus prize from Paul Grundman of BG Mastering, you all stepped up your game, making our job to pick a winner much much more difficult.  But enough time wasted, lets get on to picking the winners!

First, a quick recap of the rules:

Maybach Piano Challenge:  This beat competition was free to enter.  P5Audio provided a zip file with a free loops from our upcoming product ‘Live Maybach Piano Loops’ (formatted for acid loops, apple loops and REX loops / Reason Refills).  Producers were required to feature these free loops in their beat, and using any additional sounds of their choice, had to create a bangin’ Maybach style instrumental. Producers were allowed to submit up to two beats.

AND NOW TIME TO ANNOUNCE THE WINNING PRODUCERS!!!!…..

CHAMPION Winning Producer is:

Producer: Weirdo

Track name: MAYBACH PIANO FLASH COMPETITION 

Why we chose this track:

The Grand Prize:

• $100 in FREE P5Audio sounds
• A blog post about their life / work /music etc…
• One track mastered by Paul Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering

And the runners up are:

Runner Up #1 : Sentury Status

Track name: Hood StarzZz

Awards: Most swagger!  Drums are sick!  Got that drama!

Listen to Sentury’s track:

Runner Up #2: Da Fingaz

Track name: P5Audio Beat_ Perfection

Awards: Best instrumental arrangement.  Lot’s of classy harmony, melody and arranging in this joint!

Listen to Da Fingaz’s track:

Runner Up #3: ITMOA

Awards: Track may not be Maybach, but the sonically and musically it is amazing!  Great innovative flip using these sounds as the foundation of an epic house track!

Listen to ITMOA’s track:
[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/78174595" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

Runner Up #4: G Lee Beatz

Awards: Innovative piano chopping. Great sonic mix and arrangement!

Listen to G Lee’s track:
[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/78287333" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

The remaining top producers were:

#6 Cellou, track: Sonic Doom_Cell Therapy

#7 Oche In The Mix, track: P5 Audio Beat 2

#8 Any me, track: Pioneer Piano

Each runner gets a free copy of the Maybach Piano when it comes out next month.

Thank you everyone who entered our this very special beat contest!   Once again huge thanks to Paul Grundman of BGmastering for guest judging this competition, and hooking up the free mastering!  We’ll have another Flash Beat contest for you guys in March, so stay tuned! Please continue to keep posting your comments on our Soundcloud page.  Creating a positive learning community is what this is all about.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the all the latest contest news!  Happy Holidays everyone!!!!

Thank you everyone!!!

We honored to have Paul Grundman from the legendary BG Mastering studios in Hollywood, CA (www.berniegrundmanmastering.com), as guest judge for our latest beat competition.  And, as most of you know, Paul has generously donated a free master of a single to the winning producer.

As we gear up towards announcing the winning producer this Friday, February 15th, 2013, we thought we might post some pics of the amazing facilities over at BG Mastering.  These facilities have mastered multi-platinum records from Linkin Park to Michael Jackson to 50 Cent to the latest Call of Duty Black Ops soundtrack (view the full Bernie Grundman Mastering client list and engineering staff here) And soon, we can add the winner of our latest P5audio beat competition to that list!

For now, enjoy the pics from our visit last week! (Plus a bonus pick of Tom Morello, standing with our boy Paul Grundman, using BG Mastering for his new single “We Are The 99%”!)

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Time for the 1st Flash Beat Contest of 2013!  Maybach Piano Challenge! And we got an EXTRA SPECIAL PRIZE and GUEST JUDGE for this round! Details below.

5 Day Beat Competition: Produce an original instrumental beat using  the piano loops provided in the FREE SOUNDS PACK (download link below) as the predominant element in your beat!

The Challenge: We’ve provided a FREE sounds pack containing 13 loops from our soon to be released “Live Maybach Piano Loops”.  Your job is to create a glitzy Maybach style instrumental beat using the piano loops as the main feature element in your track.  You can chop, pitch or loop out these sounds as you like.   You can use any additional sounds of your choice to create your instrumental.  The top winning tracks will all be featured in the product demo for this product!  Each producer is allowed to submit two instrumental beats for this contest.

RULES & REQUIREMENTS:

• You must use the sounds provided in the FREE SOUNDS PACK (link provided below) as the featured instrument in your track.

• You may use any additional sounds you like.

• Each of your beat must not exceed 2:30 in total length.
• You beat can be in any popular or urban style you want.
• You can manipulate these sounds in any way you choose, but we must be able to tell it came from the Maybach Piano loops, so be judicious when you alter these samples.
• You must upload your beats by Wednesday, February 6th 11:59PM PST to our Soundcloud page (link to upload below).
• You may submit up to two beats for this round.

What the Judges will looking for:

• Innovative, creative and musical use of the free sounds provided.
• Strong musical arrangement.  No stagnation!
• Well balanced mix.
• Swagger in the beat!
• Unique creativity while preserving radio and mixtape friendliness!

We are extremely pleased to welcome Guest Judge Paul Grundman of Bernie Grundman Mastering for this Beat Contest!

Name your favorite record, and most likely it has been mastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, CA! Past and present clients include virtually every major artist in history: Michael Jackson, Dr. Dre, Elton John, Snoop Dog, Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce, Madonna, Gwen Stefani, Stevie Wonder, Eminem, Linkin Park, Katy Perry, John Mayer, The Killers, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow and pretty much everyone else you can think of!

Paul Grundman has graciously donated a FREE mastering for one single to the winning producer.  This is an unprecedented opportunity to have your music mastered in the same studios as some of the most legendary artists of all time! Before you make your beat, everyone please give a huge shout out to Paul for hooking this up! Thank you Paul!!!

Learn more about Bernie Grundman Studios:

Website: www.berniegrundmanmastering.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bgmastering

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bgmastering

The winning music producer will receive:

• $100 in FREE P5Audio Sounds!
• A Blog Post about the Winning Music Producer on the P5Audio Blog.
• Your beat used in the Maybach Piano product demo with your credit!
• A FREE master of one single by Paul Grundman at the legendary Bernie Grundman Mastering Studios!

How to Enter:

1) Download the FREE SOUNDS PACK HERE

2) Create your instrumental beat.

3) Upload your beat as an MP3 to our Soundcloud drop box below by Wednesday February 6th, 2013, 11:59PM PST!

Send us your sounds

4) Make sure you include both your name and track name as the title of your beat. Examples: “P5audio Beat_your name” .

5) Tune in here at our Blog on February 15th for the WINNER! In the mean time, check out the entries on our soundcloud page! Feel free to comment on the entries!

6) Check out the entries…

• Check out the entries at our Soundcloud Page HERE anytime.
• Our Facebook and Twitter Followers get a bonus prize if they win the contest so FOLLOW US!
• If you have any questions please submit them below!

For those of you who haven’t heard of our Flash Beat Contests: P5audio flash beat contests are short, simple, “mini” beat competitions that can last anywhere from 1 to 7 days. It is designed mainly to help music producers develop music production chops in a positive community environment, while giving participating music producers the chance to win FREE sounds, publicity and other great prizes.

Want to see some of the pics we took at The Namm Show January 25th!?

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The Music business is changing by the month.  The marketing strategies you used a couple of years ago might be already obsolete with the advent and decline of different Social Media outlets, mp3 devices and much more.  Here are some recent articles, FREE PDF’s and videos we like on Music Marketing  tips, rules, laws and more!

1: Things All Musicians need before starting a digital PR Campaign

2: The Deadly Music Career Killers Free White Paper

3: Tips for Promoting your next Show 

4: Music Marketing with Embedded Media 

5: How the Music Industry explains the weird economics of the App world

6: How Radio Royalties Work

7: CD Baby’ ultimate guide to selling your music using Youtube

8: Using Music Xray to license your music

9: CD Baby’s guide to Sell More Music with Facebook 

10: 10 Music Publicity Hacks

 Bonus:  A Musician’s Guide to Pinterest

 Treating your Home studio or Recording Studio with Acoustic Treatment

This is a guest post by mastering engineer Barry Gardner who operates  SafeandSound online mastering, based in London.

In simple terms acoustic treatment can mean the difference between a good mix and a bad mix. Acoustic treatment is often confused with sound isolation, the 2 have different aims. Sound isolation is about reducing the sound escaping from one environment into another and also stopping sound ingress into an unwanted space (i.e. a studio recording space). Acoustic treatment is installed to help produce a linear in room frequency response.

There are 2 practical ways to improve the acoustic within a room.

1) Absorbing the sound waves. 

This greatly reduces the energy of reflected waves and at high frequencies where there is lower energy can produce total absorption. The reason is that the energy entering the material creates friction and meets resistance going in and coming back out.

2) Diffusing the sound waves.
Diffusers reflect sound at different frequencies in different directions than the naturally inclined incident and reflected angles. Diffusion has the effect of reducing parallel surfaces (which can cause severe resonant acoustic issues) and reducing the energy of the waves before they meet the ear.

Absorption can be affective across the spectrum and diffusion practically works at mainly  mid and high frequencies.

The major cause of inaccurate room response is reflection from room surfaces and sometimes equipment and mixing consoles. These reflections mix together with the direct energy that emanates from loudspeaker. Because the waves mingle with different phase relationships and multiple frequencies the resulting response is complex and very skewed. It makes effective mix balance and equalization decision making extremely difficult and unreliable.

The good news is that acoustic treatment can resolve many of the problems with very obvious effect. Ideally you would employ this remidial treatment with a software system and microphone which can take room measurements so you can see the statistical improvement. However great gains can be made by employing very well known basic methods without the need for measuring.

1) Side walls are very obvious offenders for what are known as first reflections. The best method is to use 10cm thick RW3 Rockwool slabs (Owens Corning in the USA). One or 2 per side of the room depending on the size. These cut down the mid and high reflections which skew the frequency response and reduce the accuracy of your stereo imaging. If you cannot practically build a wooden frame for these you can use foam tiles though they tend not to be as effective at absorbing lower mid range frequencies. As a general guideline the thicker a material is the lower down the spectrum sound will be absorbed.

2) Ceiling cloud, a cloud is just a fancy name for an absorptive or diffusive acoustic panel suspended from the ceiling. A cloud is normally positioned mid way between the loudspeakers and the monitoring position. The cloud can be spaced away from the ceiling for more effective absorption at a lower frequency. A ceiling cloud can have a very noticeable effect on the stereo imaging as well, more so than one might imagine. Some people prefer a diffusive cloud which keeps a sense of life in the room.

3) Bass trapping is a means of absorbing low frequencies. This is the most awkward acoustic treatment to install due to the bulky nature of the materials required. The simplest of bass trap designs involve straddling an acoustic panel (of approx 10cms depth) across the room corners, ideally from floor to ceiling. A more effective method is fully infilling a corner with an air gap spacing at the rear. This type of bass trap is known as “broadband bass trapping” because it is capable of absorbing a wide range of frequencies to greater or less extent. (The lower the frequency the less effective at a given depth of material) Bass traps are also best made from RockWool or Owens Corning, they need to be of large size as the relative length of a single cycle at low frequencies is very long. To have an impact the bass traps need to be fairly deep.

Foam bass traps at common commercial sizes are at best lower mid range and high frequency traps. This is because the size and depth of the traps is not deep enough to generate sufficient friction to reduce the incident and reflected energy sub 300Hz. Foam traps also tend to have what is known as a lower absorption coefficient than Rockwool or Owens Corning.  They do however have their place in improving acoustics.

When planning acoustic treatment consider the practicalities of what you can install in your room and balance it against the size of the panels and traps and work involved.

Note: When handling RockWool and Owens Corning ensure you adhere to handling guidelines and at the least wear a pair of goggles, face mask, suitable gloves and a long sleeve shirt. 

Listen to a taste of Brad’s production…

MLK Day is coming up and we are getting a head start on the holiday with 35% off all sample sounds and music loops through Monday!   With new selections coming in all month long, it’s the perfect time to stock up!

Happy Holidays Music Producers!  Hopefully you have the day off to do some gift wrapping and beat making, but we at P5Audio can’t rest until we announce the winners of this amazing Beat Competition!  This was the hardest contest to judge this year. Props to all you producers and your amazing work! It is our honor to be able to listen to these great beats. And now, let’s get to the winners…

First, a quick recap of the rules:

Final Beat Contest of 2012:  This beat competition was free to enter.  P5Audio provided a zip file with free music loops from our brand new Construction Kit “Dubstep Monster 2, Bills and Bankrolls, Dubstep Remix, and Rock da Trap.   Music producers had to use only the sounds in the zip file provided to create a instrumental beat in any popular urban style they chose.  Producers could alter the sounds in any way they wished, BUT could ONLY use the free sounds provided!

AND NOW TIME TO ANNOUNCE THE WINNING PRODUCERS!!!!…..

CHAMPION Winning Producer is:

Producer: B Transformed (3 Time Winner!)

Track name: Beginning of the End

Why we chose this track:

The Grand Prize:

• $100 in FREE P5Audio sounds
• A blog post about their life / work /music etc…

And the runners up are:

Runner Up #1 : Da Fingaz

Track name: Change is Coming

Award: Most original beat.  Da Fingaz, again has brought a new sound like no one else can.  The brass melody in this track was straight up sick!  With a little more dynamic build ups, and drum change ups, this track could very well have taken the cake.  Keep it up Da Fingaz!

Listen to Da Fingaz’ track:

Runner Up #2: G Lee

Track name: The End

Award: We’ve come to expect stellar production from G LEE, and once again he does not disappoint. Brilliantly infusing all of the elements into one head knocking banger, from the change ups, to the drum programming, to the guitar chopping, every sample is perfectly placed.  Huge props on this one!

Listen to G Lee’s track:

Runner Up #3: DJ Chris Boice

Track Name: Two-Day Dub

Award: Nastiest Dubstep synth sound!  Great dance vibe on this track.  Work on those transitions, get them drums hitting harder, and we may be looking at contending champion sometime soon!

Listen to DJ Chris Boice’s track:

Each runner gets to choose a free copy of there choice from one of the following proudcts:

• Dubstep Monster Volume 2
• Rock Da Trap Loop Sets
• Dubstep Muzik Remix Kits
• Bills & Bankrolls Construction Kits

Thank you everyone who entered our competitions throughout 2012!  Again, it is our honor to listen to your talent at work. We have many more flash beat contests planned for 2013, so be sure to keep checking in! Please continue to keep posting your comments on our Soundcloud page.  Creating a positive learning community is what this is all about.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the all the latest contest news!  Happy Holidays everyone!!!!

Thank you everyone!!!