Making a Scene Presents

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with The Lucky Losers

The Lucky Losers are an award-winning six-piece blues and soul band from San Francisco. Since 2019, they have won six Independent Blues Awards, including Artist of the Year for vocalist Cathy Lemons and Song of the Year for “Godless Land.” The band is fronted by Lemons, a powerful singer raised in Dallas, and Phil Berkowitz, a New Jersey–born harmonica player and vocalist kn...

Making a Scene Presents - Focal Listen Professional Headphones - A Deep Dive Review
Why Tracking Headphones Matter More Than Most People Think

Tracking is where the music actually gets captured. This is the moment where a vocal performance is frozen in time, where a guitar part becomes permanent, and where mistakes either get fixed now or haunt you forever. Mixing can polish things later, but tracking is where the foundation is poure...

Making a Scene Presents - The Hard Truth: You Already Run A Business, You Just Haven’t Admitted It Yet

If you’re releasing music and touring locally, regionally, and nationally, you’re not “trying to make it.” You’re already operating a real business. Money comes in. Money goes out. Contracts get signed. Taxes show up whether you feel ready or not. The only question is whether you’re going to run your music business on purpose, or l...

Making a Scene Presents -The Indie Artist’s Guide to Writing a Real Business Plan

For independent musicians, the music business can feel confusing, overwhelming, and honestly a little intimidating. You make music because you love it, not because you dreamed of spreadsheets and contracts. But here’s the truth nobody tells you early enough: if you want music to be your career instead of an expensive hobby, you need a business plan. No...

Making a Scene Presents An Interview with Ross Neilsen

Here’s a rewritten and expanded version that keeps the facts, adds context, and smooths the story into a clear, compelling narrative.

Ross Neilsen didn’t build his career in a straight line. In 2007, he quit his job, gave up his home, and moved into his car so he could follow music full-time. For the next two years he couch-surfed, slept wherever he could, and stayed on the road ...

Making a Scene Presents - THE HITS ACT EXPLAINED FOR INDIE MUSICIANS (NO LAW DEGREE REQUIRED)

If you’ve ever finished a recording project, felt proud of the music, and then felt sick when you added up the studio bills, this article is for you. Recording costs hit indie musicians before the money comes in, sometimes long before. The HITS Act exists because lawmakers finally recognized that problem and tried to fix part of it.

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Making a Scene Presents - Unreal Engine 5.7 For Music Videos A Deep Dive Review

Epic Games built Unreal Engine to make video games, but that is no longer the most interesting use case. Over the last few years, Unreal has quietly become one of the most powerful tools for film, television, and music visuals. Version 5.7 continues that shift. It is not a toy, and it is not a filter. It is a real-time world-building engine that lets ind...

IPFS and the Decentralized Music Archive
How Indie Artists Can Host Their Entire Catalog, Serve Every Kind of Fan, and Build a Real Legacy

For decades, independent artists were handed advice that sounded helpful but quietly worked against them. Upload your music to platforms. Share a link. Trust the system to take care of the rest. On the surface, that sounds reasonable. In practice, it put your entire career inside systems you never...

Making a Scene Presents - AI Won’t Kill Music Careers—Starving Artists Will

As we head into the New Year, it’s time to take an honest look at one of the hottest and most misunderstood topics in the music industry right now. Every few months, the same cycle plays out. A scary headline appears. A new AI tool gets released. A video goes viral showing a fake song that sounds like a famous artist. Almost overnight, the mood shifts. The c...

If you’re an indie artist working from home, green screen might sound like something left over from old Hollywood movies. It can feel outdated, expensive, or disconnected from the way modern AI video works. That assumption couldn’t be more wrong. Green screen is actually one of the most important tools you can pair with AI today, especially if you want your music videos, branding visuals, and short-form content to look cinematic wi...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Levi Platero

Levi Platero is from the Navajo Nation in the Southwest United States. He first gained national attention with his family band, The Plateros, who emerged in 2004 as a blues-rock power trio often compared to artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Los Lonely Boys, and ZZ Top. The band spent more than a decade touring across the U.S., building a reputation for their high-energy live show...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Johnny Barracuda of the Soho Dukes

SOHO DUKES won’t admit it, but they’re having a very good time.

The band began in an unlikely way, not in a rehearsal room, but as a nineteenth-century–style drinking club roaming the pubs of London’s West End. On one of those legendary crawls, Bomber on bass and Johnny Barracuda on vocals crossed paths with Col “The Duke” Foster on rhythm guitar ...

Recording Vocals at Home: From Living Room to Radio-Ready

Recording vocals at home used to feel like settling. You’d stand in a bedroom or living room, sing into a mic, and then hope the computer could “fix it” later. That old approach is done. These days, an indie singer with a normal room, a few smart choices, and good habits can record vocals that sit right next to commercial releases without sounding out of place. Not because ho...

Making a Scene Presents - Why AI Video Finally Makes Sense for Indie Artists using AIVideo.com

For most independent musicians, the music video has always been the most expensive piece of the puzzle. You can record at home, distribute digitally, market on social platforms, but the moment visuals enter the conversation, the price jumps and control disappears. Crews, locations, schedules, favors, compromises. That is the old system. AI...

Making a Scene is reaffirming and expanding its commitment to the independent music community with a clear editorial mission: to continue delivering in-depth, practical journali/sm that helps artists take control of their careers instead of asking for permission from systems that were never designed to work in their favor. This commitment is not rooted in trends, hype cycles, or surface-level commentary.

It is grounded in the belief...

Making a Scene Presents - What the Hell Is an AI Agent and How can you Use it for your Music Business

Let’s strip the mystery away right now. An AI Agent is not a robot. It’s not a sci-fi brain. It’s not some Silicon Valley thing meant for billion-dollar companies. An AI Agent is simply a digital helper that can think through tasks, make decisions, and take action for you, without you babysitting every step.

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Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Johnny "V" Vernazza

Johnny “V” Vernazza was born in San Francisco and raised in Daly City, right in the middle of one of the most explosive music scenes in American history. In the 1960s, the Bay Area wasn’t just alive with music, it was overflowing. Clubs were everywhere, and it was normal to jam at four or five spots in a single night. Add legendary rooms like the Fillmore, the Avalon Ball...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Laura Rain

Detroit is a city built on grit. After decades of being written off, it is rebuilding itself as a powerful center of ideas, art, and creation. The city is once again attracting artists, innovators, and dreamers who bring new energy and purpose to the Motor City. Detroit didn’t lose its soul. It was just waiting for the right moment to rise again.

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