Alien Radio Signals
Let's Leave the Planet for a Week
Mark Rushton’s Perseverance in the Arts is a weekly email on Substack where I talk about my ongoing work as a recording artist and visual artist.
This week’s topics:
Alien Radio Signals
Sound Effects or Non-Musical Works
Reflections on Pivots
Alien Radio Signals
I’m on “staycation” next week from the day job, but I will remain busy as an artist.
As of Sunday, September 14, 2024, I’ve added about 250 pieces of “film music” to my DISCO account. These are completed recordings I’ve made in recent years, or music I’ve already released to the streaming services. I’ll be adding more recordings in the next week.
The purpose of the DISCO account is to have my music in a location where I can interest music libraries and music supervisors. They can stream it, get my details, and, if they want to license it, send along a contract. I have a list of music libraries I’ve researched and will be contacting soon. I’m already in a library and they’ll want to hear more, too. It’s been a lot of work to build up the DISCO account.
If you want to listen in, and stream freely, start with this link to “Alien Radio Signals”. From there, you can take a deep dive into my catalog of sounds.
Sound Effects or Non-Musical Works
This past week, I got accepted into what they call a “sound effects” library. I had to send them three of my “best” sound effects. I have mountains of different things. All I needed to do was follow the instructions. Within 24 hours, I passed the test and got an account.
As a reward, but also to use as a new creative source, I bought a proper shortwave listening radio, a Tecsun PL-880. It’ll be here later in the week. They’re supposed to be good. It has the features I’m looking for, and isn’t full of menus. I’d like to run the radio through my effects rig to capture some different types of sound effects.
Reflections on Pivots
Just a few months ago, I was still releasing music to streaming services. I may do that in the future, but for now I’ve stopped that, left my publishing administrator, started self-managing my music catalog, mostly cleaned up their mess, and now I’m transitioning in the direction of “film music” and sound effects for other creatives.
That’s a major shift. My catalog is now over 3200 titles. Some of the work involved to achieve this shift is a serious grind: data analysis, bulk uploads, social engineering, editing audio, and learning new systems. I’m not complaining. I mapped out what I needed to do to fully pivot my ship and I knew what was involved.
Soon, I’ll get back to the fun grind of making new sounds and getting them out the door. I’m so full of ideas right now. To be able to be positioned in various libraries where creatives can discover my work, and use it as “the right thing” for their project, is what I want as an artist.