There are a few things that I want to talk about. The main one is the Unsigned Techno Artist page. This is really cool, yet not alot of people are "getting it" at the mo, which is ashame. I want it to highlight the cool unsigned techno acts that are around today. There are absolutely loads of them, and I have had enough of listening to poor music on the TV, radio etc. The cool thing is that the page includes links to the artists pages which in themselves contain free MP3 downloads. The idea is also to promote these artists. The more Internet space that they can find to highlight their work the better really. Also a link to their site is a really good thing for the engines and for their PR rating. If you know a site or an artist, type into the relevant box with their link (even if you are the artist), I will come along and do a mini review, and put the artist on the site, easy. How to get increased traffic and kudos appears in the article below.

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I would also like you to input to this site. What would you like me to cover, what would you like to see more of-sampling, sequencing, bass lines? Do you want to add your own articles and get backlinks? It is up-to-you. I have created a small form, if you could take about 1 minute to say what would you like, then go for it, I want to deliver what YOU want.

Click here to complete the very small form (I mean reall small!)- about 1 minutes (if that) work.

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It is now a quarter of the way through the year and this site has grown, and small little things have occured for the better. What is the next few months going to bring, well:

1. A cool update, that will be available only as an ebook to mailing list subscribers. And no, it won't cost a penny, totally free. I am looking forward to releasing it. Can't tell you what it is about, but it will be cool.

2. The Internet radio part of the site, it is in the making, but what I have tried so far is ok, but nothing special, so that is being worked on.

3. Anything that occurs from the above questions.

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2 free VSTs are present, both synths:

VOPM http://www.geocities.jp/sam_kb/VOPM/Ver013/VOPM013_WIN.zip

GTG13 http://miksybrandt.panicnow.net/Synth_zips/GTG_13.L_update.ZIP

If you want some cool drumloops, a good site is BreakBeats Only, and if you go the their "last years site updates" then you have access to some more beats.

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I have also completed an article for ezinearticles.com, that will be reproduced here:

Simple solutions to get yourself known for free

I read an article in a well known magazine the other day and found that they were advising musicians to spend out hundreds in advertising costs to get themselves known. True.

Is there another way?

Well yes, there is. What we have useful to us all is the Internet. This great medium is so underrated it is unbelieveable.

The key to getting yourself known is to spread yourself all over the internet. Pretend that the Internet is a slice of bread, a bagel....hmm...yum.

Sorry, stay with me, you need to follow this one. If you bought some really nice spread, costing $100 and you only spread one quarter of the bagel (this expensive food doesn't go far). Now you have only one bite, only one and a random one at that, so you randomly bite into the bagel, more than likely you will have much less chance of being found than if you spent less money on a similar spread and used all of it, all over the bagel. Now this is what happens everytime someone logs onto the Internet. You have one shot, you are being targeted roughly by random and too much money spent in one area is a very bad idea. So what do you do?Well, the main thing is not to spend any money if possible. If you have music to distribute then do that. Sign up to all the MP3 hosting sites that you can find, there are so many now on the Internet that they are free and offer some cool incentives (like unlimited bandwidth, hardrive space and such like). The more you apply to, the more likely that you are not going to be missed by anyone. This technique also reduces the possibility of your paid site being shut down, having any failures in the future, or being ranked less in the search engines (with so much competition this is a high possibility).

Phase two, make sure that you have your own website. On each site put a link back to your own site, this then increases your PR rate with the search engines and increases your link status (roughly: more links in the higher you rate). Also you gain free traffic for many years from these sites.

Make you homepage appealing, offering blogs and newsletters, even "guides and DIY articles". Why? Well once someone comes to your site and goes away the likelihood of them returning is very low, and then you have lost them. This is why the newsletters and blogs are so important, they keep the one-time visitor coming back for check-ups to YOUR site, without them trying to find you again (very unlikly).

One thing that I can never understand when I am searching through MP3 hosting sites is "why do people give a range of their work on one page?" All fair and well, and much kudos for doing so, but I think that this is a waste of Internet real-estate. Your site should be targeted, your name should be targeted. I am into Techno etc, so it is rare that I will hunt out jazz songs. But this is what I find when I go onto a techno artists site. My tip would be to call yourself something different for each genre that you do. For example: DJ Harsh for your electronic music, Earthly for your New Age music, The Fields for your Country and Western music...you get the idea.

Having a separate name for each of your styles will then target 2-3 (or however many genres you do) times more visitors- a possible 100-200% increase in visitor downloads. But again, you would link each site to each other just in case. You would even make up separate websites for each genre anyway. Most people in the artist world do this. For example: Les Rythmes Digitales who made "Jacques your body (make me sweat)"- a cool techno song, and Stuart Price are one of the same. Who is Stuart Price? Madonnas new producer under his real name. The KLF, The Doctors in the Tardis, and The Justified Acients of MuMu (no joke) are all one of the same.

Diversify yourself to get yourself known, apply to everywhere that you can and keep on adding great music.

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Enjoy, and see you for some more updates soon!

Dominic
email: general@make-your-own-dance-and-techno-songs.com
Site: http://www.make-your-own-dance-and-techno-songs.com