Making a Scene Presents

Making a Scene Presents - The Artist Revenue Ladder: How Indie Artists Turn Free Fans Into Real Income Over Time

There is a dangerous lie floating around the music business, and it has been sold to indie artists for years. The lie says that if enough people hear your music, the money will somehow show up later. Get more streams. Get more followers. Get more likes. Get more views. Feed the machine. Keep posting. Keep begging the alg...

Making a Scene Presents - The Return Of The Regional Music Economy
Why the Future of Independent Music May Be Closer to Home Than We Think

There was a time when every serious artist was told the same story.

Get out of town. Get in the van. Hit the road. Go national. Chase the playlist. Chase the press. Chase the algorithm. Chase the booking agent. Chase the big festival slot. Chase anything that looked bigger than the town you...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Ghalia Volt

No barriers. No boundaries. That has always been Ghalia Volt’s approach to American roots music.

Born in Belgium and now based in New Orleans, Ghalia Volt is a blues-rock singer, guitarist, drummer, and songwriter whose music refuses to stay in one lane. Her sound reaches across borders, pulling from the flamenco and traditional Spanish music she heard through h...

Making a Scene Presents - Mixing Quietly: Why Lower Volume Makes Better Decisions

There is one home studio habit that can improve almost every mix without costing a dime. It does not require a new interface, a new microphone, a new plug-in bundle, or some secret trick from a million-dollar control room. It is almost boring in how simple it is.

Turn the monitors down.

That’s it. Not forever. Not so low that you can barely hear...

Making a Scene Artist Fan Passport OS: The Free Gateway To An Artist-Owned Music Economy
The Music Business Needs A Middle Class Again

The music business has never had a talent problem. It has had an ownership problem.

Every town has artists who can move a room. Every scene has songwriters, bands, producers, players, DJs, engineers, promoters, and music lovers who are doing the work without the safety net. These are not hobbyi...

Making a Scene Presents - The Digital Campfire: How AI Can Create Community Instead of Content

Somewhere along the way, independent artists were handed a job they never asked for.

They were told to become content creators.

Not songwriters. Not performers. Not recording artists. Not community builders. Not storytellers. Content creators.

That phrase may sound harmless, but it changed the way artists think about their own careers. It...

Making a Scene Presents - The Indie Artist Playbook Is Being Rewritten in Real Time
The Old Rules Are Breaking While Everyone Is Still Using Them

The indie artist playbook is being rewritten in real time, and a lot of artists are still trying to win with rules from a game that is already gone.

For the last fifteen years, the music business sold independent artists a simple dream. Get on the platforms. Build your followers. Cha...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Mare

With gospel roots, classical training, and a powerhouse voice, Mare creates intimate, modern R&B that feels both timeless and deeply personal. Her music carries the emotional weight of church harmonies, the discipline of classical study, and the smooth confidence of contemporary soul. It is a sound that has taken her around the world, from the churches of Philadelphia, where she fi...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Vic Wayne of the Star Collector

Star Collector is a Vancouver, British Columbia rock & roll band with a long history, a loud heart, and a stubborn commitment to melody, guitars, and the glorious mess of being in a real band. Formed in Vancouver and seasoned through years of touring across Canada, the United States, and Europe, Star Collector has built a reputation as a group ...

Making a Scene Presents - Transient Shaping: Controlling Punch Without Compression

There is a moment in almost every home studio mix where the artist reaches for a compressor because something does not hit hard enough. The snare feels soft. The kick feels buried. The acoustic guitar sounds flat. The electric guitar does not jump out of the speakers. The drums feel like they are sitting behind a blanket instead of driving the song f...

Making a Scene Presents - Fan Loyalty Is Becoming The New Currency of the Music Industry
The Future of the Music Business Will Not Be Built on Likes

For years, independent artists were told to chase attention as if attention alone was a business plan. Get more followers, get more likes, get more views, get more streams, post more videos, feed the machine, stay visible, and hope the algorithm decides to smile on you for a few m...

Making a Scene Presents - Fender Studio Pro 8.1 Review: AI Finally Walks Into the DAW Without Kicking the Artist Out of the Room

There are updates that add a few fixes, polish a few menus, and quietly move the version number forward. Then there are updates that tell you where a company thinks music production is going. Fender Studio Pro 8.1 is the second kind. This is not just a maintenance release. This is Fender planting a flag i...

Making a Scene Presents - Why Ownership Is the Only Metric That Matters Anymore
The New Scoreboard for Independent Music

For most of the digital music era, artists were trained to chase numbers that looked impressive from the outside. Streams. Followers. Views. Likes. Shares. Monthly listeners. Playlist adds. Short-form video plays. The whole industry built a scoreboard around attention and then convinced artists that attentio...

Making a Scene Brings you Gerry Casey's Interview with Ronan Gallagher

Ronan Gallagher is proof that it’s never too late to find your real voice. A true late starter, he didn’t learn to play guitar or sing until his mid-fifties. That was just over five years ago—and instead of easing into it, Ronan hit the ground running, making up for lost time with the drive of someone who knows exactly what he wants to say.

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Making a Scene Presents - Low-End Control: How to Get Tight Bass and Kick Without Mud
Why the Bottom End Makes or Breaks the Mix

Most beginner mixes do not fall apart because the vocal is terrible. They do not fall apart because the guitar tone is unusable. They usually fall apart because the low end turns into a swamp. The kick drum gets big, then the bass gets big, then somebody turns up the low knob because the speakers are...