Featured Music Maker for October:

NeoKitsch is a music studio in the heart of trendy Crouch End, London, which specialises in producing original musical scores, sound design, voiceover and foley for film and TV. Five albums have been released under NeoKitsch, some classical music, and some fusion electronic music, and they can be downloaded from iTunes and other leading stores.

NeoKitsch has been active in composing music for filmmakers worldwide including productions in LA, Milan, Berlin, Zurich, Hamburg and London, collaborating with names such as UK Film Council, The League Of Gentlemen, Arts Council England, Sky One and MTV, with works presented at BAFTA screenings and film festivals.
The NeoKitsch Blog is regularly updated with reviews and articles on unusual musical instruments, films and new music. You can check out all the serious and silly things NeoKitsch gets up to at: www.neokitsch.com

Current projects NeoKitsch is involved in includes the full score for the stage production of Frankenstein which will be performed in March (date and venues TBC). The lead instruments will be the Violin and Etherwave Theremin.

NeoKitsch is a huge collector of unusual and vintage instruments, and the studio often uses acoustic stringed instruments such as the violin, mandolin, and cello. Some of the more far out instruments include the Omnichord, Micro Garden, Theremin, Circuit Bent Synths, and Stylophone. Among the hard to find, vintage gear NeoKitsch collects, are the Moog Rogue, Yamaha CS10, Korg MS2000B, Roland JV1080, and the famous Roland TB-303. NeoKitsch also uses more modern synths, although arguably, they tend to lean towards the nostalgic 70's and 80's sounds. Some of these modern machines include the Elektron Monomachine and Machinedrum, and the Sid Station.

NeoKitsch is familiar with composing music for a wide range of different genres, but the speciality genre seems to lean in the direction of classical music for violin and piano, fused with electronic glitch and experimental music.

The NeoKitsch studio is run by one person, Danny Hahn, but he often collaborates with classical musicians and specialists in fields which help broaden the possibilities of composing music.

When NeoKitsch is composing with computer software such as ProTools, Max MSP, Logic and Sibelius, novelty Midi controllers are often used such as the Monome. Interesting videos of some of the weird instruments NeoKitsch uses, including the Monome, can be found on YouTube. Here are a few examples:






More info can be found here: neokitsch.humtoo.com

New HUM system on HUMTOO explained...

The HUM system is a vote-style rating system for music on HUMTOO. There is no number rating (e.g. four out of five), and no negative votes.

Every 24hrs every member of HUMTOO gets one HUM which they can use to show their appreciation of a track. Nobody can HUM their own tracks.

To HUM a track simply press the HUM button on the player for that track.

Tracks with more HUMs go to the top of projects and library searches.

So next time you hear a great track on the site, do the community a favour and HUM it.

You can see the total HUMs a track has on the display above the button and the total of all the HUMs on all your tracks on the HUM display above your profile picture on your profile.

To level the playing field as each new project comes onto the site, tracks have a separate number of HUMs on each project they are pitched for.

These HUMs display in red and add to the total HUMs that a track and music maker has received.

This means that old and new tracks start from the same spot and have the same chance of rising to the top on each new project.

www.humtoo.com

HUMTOO is giving away a macbook pro!

We love the sound of our production music, and we think you will too.

We’re offering a MacBook Pro for the best use of our music (there’s loads of other great prizes to be announced shortly).

It’s simple and easy to enter; simply go to www.humtoo.com and sign-up for FREE. Then, search our production music library or create a project in the project marketplace.

HUMTOO’s music is FREE to use on broadcast productions, and each track has an individual price for non-broadcast productions.

Once you’ve found the perfect piece of music for your production, send us a link, ftp or yousendit.com us a quicktime of the result. Please include your email address, humtoo username and the name of the music track you used with your entry.

We’ll review all the entries and our judging panel will choose the best use of our music.

More information on the prizes and entry can be found here: macbookpro.humtoo.com

You can also view examples of previous projects that have found music on our sizzle reel here: http://tiny.cc/Wadxo

If you’ve any questions or comments, message us anytime at talktous@humtoo.com

We look forward to seeing your work soon.

Cheers,

The HUMTOO Team

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Something cool

While updating our Youtube page, we came across this, created by one of HUMTOO's members, check it out:



We contacted Neokitsch, and this is what he has to say:

This video is part of a project I call Neon Quiche (which is a play on words from NeoKitsch). This project and the video I uploaded is inspired by 1970's cooking shows. I am very much influenced by kitsch food and cookery. Where the "Neo" part of "Kitsch" comes in, is where I involve serious and experimental contemporary music.I made the video in one take in my kitchen.

Check out some of Neokitsch's tracks on HUMTOO: neokitsch.humtoo.com

If you're making something cool, that's in any way related to music, we want to know about it - email Mike@humtoo.com and we'll get it up here on the blog.

www.humtoo.com

Congratulations to maximkf.humtoo.com

Congratulations to maximkf.humtoo.com for his successful pitch for the Chew TV project.

The Chew TV team were really impressed with all the music pitched for their projects on HUMTOO.

We've uploaded the final project to our youtube account, have a look at it here:

Introducing HUMTOO's featured music maker for September, Peter Godfrey - godfreymusic.humtoo.com

Peter Godfrey is HUMTOO's featured music maker for September. With over 220 tracks on HUMTOO, Godfreymusic is a prolific composer who has been successful in numerous projects posted on HUMTOO.

Since completing his degree in music at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and advanced composition at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Peters musical experience is vast and some of his accomplishments include;

• Musical Director for a number of youth theatre shows, including Wizard of Oz, Narnia, Fame, Disco Inferno and The Wiz

• One time member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain

• National Semi Finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year

• Performer: flute (my principal instrument), keyboards, drums, saxophone

• Performed mainly in and around Stafford and Oxford areas, as a semi-professional (in orchestras, bands, shows and as a soloist) and for amateur gigs

• Stage Musical writing partnership with lyricist Arran Potts – to date have 4 musicals for school/youth theatre performances

• Composed extensive amounts of incidental music for plays, including the premiere of David Calcutt’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”.

• Full time music teacher and Head of Year 10 at Weston Road High School, Stafford since 1991.

For more information and to listen to some of his great tracks, check out: godfreymusic.humtoo.com

Humming along...

We've been busy, busy adding a few features to the site over the past couple of weeks...and we're excited to announce that there is a new feature on our homepage.

Here in the HUMTOO office we can see what's happening on the site, who's uploading new music to the site, who is joining the HUMTOO community and so on. But we felt that it was harder for the community to keep up with what was going on. So we decided to create the humming along box...it gives you updates as to exactly what's new on the site and what's going down.

We've a bunch of new features we'll be releasing in the near future so stay tuned...

www.humtoo.com

Introducing HUMTOO's featured musician for August - Corey Bates cbates.humtoo.com

Corey Bates is HUMTOO's featured musician for August.

So who is the musician behind the winning track for the HUMCAST project?

Corey Bates has been writing and performing since the age of 17. With the regional success he experienced having his music in regular rotation on many area radio stations, Corey decided to relocate to Los Angeles and attend Musicians Institute.

In 1996 he joined the newly formed version of Neve, a band discovered by Randy Jackson. The live dates, label showcases and recordings he played on eventually led to their signing to Columbia Records.

Corey also supported many other up-and-coming aritsts, often filling the role of music director. His experience and abilites were a perfect fit for many solo artists on the rise, such as Kendall Payne on Capitol Records (1997); where he worked with producer Ron Aniello (Lifehouse, Days of the New, Guster).

All the while, his song writing skills were also being recognized and he was offered spec recording time by then Saban Entertainment composer Ian Nickus (The Red West, Friends, Power Rangers). It was during those late night sessions that 'Alternate Lifestyle' was recorded, which was eventually placed on Dane Cook's Tourgasm series and the soundtrack on Playtone/Atlantic.

After relocating to Rochester, NY, he filled the role of Audio Producer for an interactive products company and created promo music for Microsoft, Cisco Systems, the PGA and many others. Locally he has written music used on PBS, RES Exhibits and hired as sound consultant on an audio branding project for Kodak.

These days Corey is performing with his band, Cruelty Free, in the upstate New York area and abroad and continues to have his music licensed for tv/film.

You can find out more about Corey and his music on his profile on HUMTOO.

www.humtoo.com

The HUMCAST tune is....

After a week or two (at least!) of agonising over the successful track for the HUMCAST project, we're proud to announce we've gone with.... (please listen to the announcement on ipadio!)



HUMTOO's HUMCAST will begin shortly, we'll be vodcasting about projects, new music on the site and much, much more so get ready for it!

Thanks to everyone for pitching their tracks - we were blown away by all the fantastic music put up for the project.

The HUMTOO team.

HUMTOO goes non-exclusive

HUMTOO has just updated it's publishing agreement with it's music making community to a non-exclusive publishing deal with it's members with tracks on the site.

As HUMTOO's library expands and is broadcast across the globe earning it's music making community money in performance royalties, the HUMTOO team decided to change their agreement with their members as they believe it will assist in speeding up the growth of the library.

You are completely free to do whatever you want with your music outside the site and ownership of your music remains 100% with you.

HUMTOO will take the publisher's share (50%) of performance royalties earned through HUMTOO only. This is HUMTOO's only publishing commission on this site. Any project fees, sync or reproduction royalties earned by your music are 100% yours and all memberships, listings and general use of the site are free.

We will register all works with our PRO which will speed up the distribution of royalties if you also register the agreement with your PRO and let them know the track is published by HUMTOO (50% split of performance royalties each - 100% mechanical royalties to you).

We may retitle your work for use in our library and we only ask that if you publish a track you have on HUMTOO elsewhere that you give it a new name (completely different than the name on HUMTOO).

Please read the contributing music maker agreement for the full details and if you have any questions at all please email us we're here to help.

More information can be found in the how it works section of the site: http://www.humtoo.com/how-it-works.asp?HIWPageID=80

We have recently uploaded another mix tape project on the site called Arena. We'll be putting up more mixtapes in the near future, if you'd like an email reminder when they go up, please email us at: newstuff@humtoo.com with 'add me' in the subject line and we'll send you an email everytime a new project is uploaded to HUMTOO.

Keep up the great work!

The HUMTOO team