Last fall, we debuted the first-ever session of our course Orchestration for Strings that included personalized support for students from a Mainstage Mentor — a handpicked expert in his or her field who offered feedback on the student’s work. The course itself was a big success, garnering a 100% completion rate and a ton of validating feedback from our students,…
New course announcement! You asked, and we delivered. We’re really excited to announce the arrival of our most ambitious course to date: Faders Up: Modern Mix Techniques. This course features interviews with nine of the top sound engineers working today teaching the ins and outs of creating top-quality DIY mixes of your music — engineers…
Make your digital MIDI productions sound more organic with these helpful tips for layering pianos from electronic music producer Hyperbits!
Why does it seem like all the songs on the radio are about breakups? Why do sad chords sound so pleasurable? Welcome to the Sadness Paradox.
This past weekend, I was lucky enough to catch legendary jazz bassist William Parker and his “Tone Motion Theatre” hit Brooklyn’s Roulette for a free jazz celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called Yes I Dream of Freedom. It was basically a masterclass in how to execute a creative and thought-provoking concept piece, as Parker used music, dance,…
If you’re like me, you’ll be celebrating World Toilet Day this weekend! Besides reflecting on the mission of this holiday, which is to raise awareness of the 2.4 billion global citizens with no access to clean and safe sanitation, however, I’m not totally sure how people are supposed to celebrate World Toilet Day — save for using…
Along the road to becoming a successful musician, one encounters quite a few “P” words: patience, perseverance, posture, pain, etc. However, the most important of these words is undeniably and frustratingly, “practice.” I’ve personally had a love/hate relationship with practice since 2002. I can remember quite clearly my mother insisting that I practice my drums on a…
This week, we wrapped up another incredible Mainstage session. String orchestrations were crafted, tracks were mixed, and singing actors honed their theory and song prep skills. It was also the premiere session of our newest course, Faders Up: Modern Mix Techniques 1. In Faders Up, students explore important mixing concepts like EQ, compression, routing, and…
By Nicholas Rubright In today’s environment where music is consumed mostly from streaming and free sources, making money from music sales seems like a thing of the past. CD sales were replaced by downloads fees, which are now being replaced by royalties from music streaming, often worth less than the checks they’re written on. While free…
This year, we introduced the first ever annual edition of The Flypaper Writer Awards, a.k.a. “The Flypies” in order to reward the writers who produced the most successful articles throughout 2016, across a wide array of categories. And if that sounds boring, well… Just watch the video. We had some fun with it! So, without further ado, here are…
At the same time as computer technology has exploded, we’ve watched the precipitous decline in music as a physical medium. It’s an obvious and understandable trend from both the consumer and manufacturer perspective. Listeners consume music almost exclusively as streamable files on our computers, tablets, and portable devices, so why should we be spending our money on obsolete…
A touching OpEd from a musician in Soundfly’s global member community, about the highs and lows of attempting to level up his workflow.
A thoughtful editorial about being a parent and musician at the same time, and some tips on how to balance the best of both worlds.
Get to know the newest member of the Soundfly Mentor team, Brooklyn’s go-to mixing engineer for hip-hop, trap, and pop music.
Flypaper ran over 320 articles this year. Let the Soundfly staff navigate you through the best of the best in this list of our Top 5 articles from 2018.
Bassists don’t always get the credit they deserve. Here are 10 examples of rock bassists eeking out a moment to let their brilliance shine through.
Pulsewave is the longest running event exploring chip music (a.k.a. chiptune or 8-bit music) in the country. These days, they throw monthly events at New York City’s gaming-culture-centric art space, Babycastles. But aside from providing audiences with cutting edge chip music and live visual performances, all making use of vintage video game systems as the basis…
For electronic home producers, writing lyrics doesn’t always come easy. Here are a few tried-and-true strategies culled from our newest online course.
Cranky neighbors. A dearth of suitable space to stack amps. A shortage of cash. There are any number of obvious and legitimate reasons for learning to record your electric guitar tracks direct in. When you get this skill down pat, you’ll find the approach delivers a great deal of speed and flexibility without compromising too much on…
There’s a very good reason why the pentatonic scale is so generally pleasing, applicable, and capable of making neck hairs stand on end: It’s something humans have been perfecting for a long time, and can be found in cultures all over the world. As a guitarist, I’ve often wondered whether the guitar was in some ways…
Read our interview with composer and arranger, Erik Ian Walker, which explores his data-driven environmental composition, “Climate.”
In this new series of spotlights, we’re introducing our full roster of Soundfly Mentors so you can choose who you want to work with on your next project!
Introducing Soundfly’s Expert Ableton Live Mentor Pack: Our five strongest production mentors who are ready to take your Ableton skills to the next level!
A refined meditation on the subtle importance of artistic taste from a veteran music producer known for crossing aesthetic styles in unique ways.
Prince is gone. Honestly, I’m still tongue-tied. As is the case for most musicians I know, Prince has been an unwavering pillar of my musical life. Maybe the only one, in fact. For my wedding, all my friends recorded themselves singing “Purple Rain,” which my sister- and brother-in-law mashed up with the real song and…
