Top 15 tools that musicians should use to expand their music.

In this new age, the digital music industry is in its full bloom and has been growing at an unprecedented pace. But the best thing about this is that the entrance to the world of music is open to all. Anyone with enough drive, ambition, and skillset can build up a beautiful career with music.

But the sheer number of music marketing platforms and music producing programs is overwhelming. To create the best marketing strategy and to gain a large audience you must have the best tools and resources at your fingertips. The first step to your musical journey starts from choosing the most suitable music creating program. And later, you must select the best marketing platform to promote your music. Therefore, here is the list of tools that musicians should use to create and expand their music.

4 BEST music creating software

Figuring out the most suitable software for music creation depends on the taste and style of your music. Yes, the hardware is significant but it needs an assistant in the form of a music producing software to craft a masterpiece.

Having said that, here is a list of some of the best music producing platforms available in the market.

Sibelius- Music Notation Software

Used by composers, arrangers, engravers, and copyists in some of the largest music producing houses, Sibelius is one of the fastest and smartest tools available to write music.

Named after the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, Sibelius was established in 1993 by Ben Finn and Jonathan Finn. Since then, the company has won several awards. One of them is the prestigious Queen's Award for Innovation in 2005.

Sibelius provides numerous benefits to its user such as:

• Supports a plethora of musical notations such as choral, jazz, pop, folk, rock, modern orchestral, and chamber music scores.
• Helps you spend more time on your music by ingeniously assigning all notation, layout details, and markups in just one click.
• The software supports all kinds of MIDI devices, including Audio Units plug-ins and Virtual Studio Technology (VST) to be used as playback instruments. This acts as a gateway to third-party sample libraries.
• Music XML files can easily be transformed into elegantly formatted scores without any manual work. Also, the score data can be imported directly into a new Sibelius file or template.
• It is also one of the best means to improve collaboration and cooperation between engravers, composers, and arrangers. It further helps the user by sending the scores out for proofreading, review, and approval.

The most amazing aspect of Sibelius is its shareability. The users can publish their scores via cloud sharing (available in all versions) and reach almost anyone sitting in any part of the world with an internet connection. The viewers can play, transpose, change instruments, and provide their valuable feedback to the composer.

Avid Pro Tools:

Being the top choice of many score composers from the TV & Film Industries, Avid Pro Tools is a very vast and sophisticated program available in the market. The sheer scale and significance of this program can be inferred by the fact that several colleges provide dedicated courses teaching how to operate this program. Also, many books have been written that can teach you how to access all the benefits of this program. Hence, it is undoubtedly one of the best tools available for professional musicians.

Here are some of the most exciting features of Avid Pro Tools:

• Apart from being exceptional by itself, it also works conjointly with a myriad of analog-to-digital converters and PCIe cards.
• It uses a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) to enhance the processing power of the host computer for processing real-time effects like equalization and compression.
• The program possesses an audio engine and allows the inclusion of 128 additional tracks with the standard version. The ultimate version extends this list up to 256 tracks.
• Also, Avid Cloud Collaboration allows you to collaborate with songwriters, bandmates, other artists, and producers remotely. Hence, you can work with other musicians without leaving the comfort of your home.
• The composed music could be launched on Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, TIDAL, Deezer, and many more.
• A budding musician can grow his/her fanbase with ease as Avid Pro Tools allow the users to retain 100% right and earning of their music.

The free version of the software is available for everyone. You can start your musical journey with that version and then hop to the standard or ultimate version.

GarageBand for Mac:

GarageBand is specially designed by Apple for junior musicians and composers. Hence, it is quite obvious that it is the best music composing software for Mac and iPad users. Moreover, GarageBand is used by many professional composers because of its simplicity.

With a variety of features like the iconic Touch Bar for MacBook Pro, an inbuilt sound library including instruments and virtual drummers & percussionists, you can create music like a pro.

Some of the top features of GarageBand are:

• GarageBand is designed as a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), allowing it to record and playback multiple tracks. The quality of the tracks can be enhanced with effects like reverb, distortion, and echo. Included with a large collection of preset effects to choose from, you can create the best effect which suits your style.
• It has an expanded library with a plethora of music styles such as EDM, Dubstep, Hip Hop Hop, Metal, and Blues.
• The best feature of GarageBand is the virtual Drummer, which includes a remarkable selection of session drummers and percussionists. It learns your musical style & taste and plays along with your music. The selection includes 28 drummers and 3 percussionists in six genres.
• With iCloud, you can create music wherever you want, be it on the subway or a waiting-room. Start working on your iOS device as soon as an idea strikes your mind. Later, import it to your Mac to turn your idea into a masterpiece.

Steinberg Cubase:

Being a bit more technical in comparison to other music creating software, Cubase packs a huge variety of virtual instruments, effects, and scores. Once you gain the expertise required to operate this program, you can create wonders with music.

Here are some of the best features of Steinberg Cubase:

• Synchronize the stacked vocals and other recordings with ease using the audio alignment tool to match several tracks to an assigned reference track.
• Unlike its competitors, Cubase has unlimited MIDI & audio tracks, with a vast sound library, enabling you to choose the best track to mix from a virtual ocean of tracks and scores.
• The latest version has a completely revised MIDI Retrospective Recording feature. It continuously tracks your MIDI input and retains your best performance even if you were not recording.
• Cubase has changed the game by launching the latest version, Cubase 10.5, with a variety of improvements including additional instruments and tools.

11 Music Marketing Tools for Independent Artists

Promoting your music can be challenging as the music industry is highly competitive, especially for independent artists and musicians. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost 36% of the singers and 23% of composers and music directors are self-employed. Therefore, you have to be highly selective in crafting your marketing strategy. Hop in to find out the best music marketing tools-

ReverbNation

ReverbNation aspires to bring together the different communities of musicians, artists, producers, and event organizers on the same platform to communicate and collaborate to help the emerging artists and musicians to reach the global audience.

ReverbNation has helped millions of budding artists build their musical careers with its robust career management and music marketing toolkit. It offers various tools and services such as:

A wide range of widgets that the members can use to present their content on the web pages. Tune Widget is one of those widgets that promote the content by linking additional content produced by the artists/bands.

Band Equity is another feature that measures the popularity of an artist/band by using four distinct factors- access, reach, influence, and recency.

Other services include newsletters via email, specifically designed advertisement to target the apt audience, and Crowd reviews from users.

Spotify for Artists

Do you want your voice to reach millions of people worldwide? Do you wish that your music joins some best playlist on Spotify? Well, Spotify for Artists can help you accomplish that. With over 290 million listeners worldwide, it is one of the best platforms to track, improve, and optimize your performance.

You can get Spotify for artists free of cost if you have music on Spotify. Start your journey by customizing your Spotify profile and accessing crucial data on a myriad of factors such as the number of followers, stream, and much more.

You can present new songs to the editors of some of the world's most-liked playlists. This will enable your music to appear on the 'release radar' playlist in your fans' recommendation section. Therefore, Spotify for artists is arguably the best tool for independent musicians.

Soundcharts

This forum helps its users draw essential plans and strategies to grow and expand their musical career to a whole new level. It can collect crucial data to assist you in accessing your personalized marketing blueprint.

Soundcharts tracks social media performance and compiles several digital charts from leading musical platforms like Youtube, Shazam, TikTok, and even Instagram. By doing so, it provides a meticulous picture of a musician's performance in the industry.

Thus, Soundchart proves to be a significant asset in conveying an efficient marketing strategy inspired by insights, music campaign results, and potential markets.

Hubspot (CRM)

Hubspot is a leading Customer Relationship Management tool used by professionals for marketing in various fields. Artists and musicians can use the free version of Hubspot CRM to glance at their bookings, mark gigs requiring attention, track the point of contacts (POCs), and do much more.

Hubspot facilitates music professionals to design and employ marketing techniques across multiple platforms. Once employed, Hubspot further helps in the optimization of the strategy by drawing insights related to the success of the strategy. It covers everything from blogs, social media posts, email newsletters, to advertisements to provide the best marketing method.

Show.co

Show.co has a plethora of benefits and features that can push your musical career to a whole new level.

The most amazing feature offered by the platform is Spotify pre-save. Specially designed for indie artists, this feature offers free pre-save campaigns. Your fans can save your music on Spotify before its release. This supplements the early streaming activity.

With Youtube Premiere, get your latest Youtube videos featured on a page that is controlled by you. You can tailor the user experience and increase your view counts.

Boost your social media performance with Audience Builder and gain more followers. It lets you put a "gate" in front of any webpage and grow your email lists, Youtube subscribers, and much more.

Moreover, unlike many other platforms Show.co ensures your audience's satisfaction by providing an attractive landing page. This boosts the engagement ratio of your fans.

The smart and easy-to-use UI makes Show.co one of the most efficient music marketing platforms.

Buzzstream

Being the world's best outreach Customer Relationship Management tool, Buzzstream plays a critical role in link-building and marketing. It is favorable in searching for the best social media influencers in your genre.

You can send well-customized pitch in bulk to different audiences and compile a link building database. By helping you stay organized and grow your digital PR, Buzzstream provides an efficient strategy to market your music.

ToneDen

ToneDen claims to be its users' biggest "ally" when it comes to tackling marketing challenges. The platform assists in designing perfect ad campaigns that ensure time management and boost your revenue.

ToneDen's Playbooks offers well-designed and proven strategies that are customized to your music style. Its tools are incredibly helpful in targeting the ideal customer. Along with the great results, ToneDen also aids in cutting down unnecessary marketing expenses.

Music Fibre

Music Fibre features a directory of 300+ companies, tools, and resources helping budding musicians to expand their musical career. Providing a wide range of services like email marketing, social media campaigns, hiring booking agencies, PR & Press agencies, and much more.

The platform also provides blogs and music video resources to aspiring musicians in the form of tips and tutorials. Moreover, Music Fibre is also developing a calculator that can estimate the amount of revenue an artist would receive in royalties from Spotify.

Amplify

Amplify aims to improve your way of sharing your content as it can be a tricky business. Sharing the links of your content at various platforms can be less effective and time-consuming, hence, Amplify allows you to release your content at multiple services. Here are some of the best features of Amplify:

It allows you to tailor your link pages, with custom design and description.

Easily track the traffic and boost your sales & streaming conversion with elegantly developed landing pages.

Reduced loading time as it is crucial for conversion.

Amplify renders complete control to the user in choosing the suitable streaming services to link to, and how they would like to display them.

Bandcamp

With a mission to create the best possible service for artists and musicians to help them earn money and increase their fan following, Bandcamp is used by millions of fans around the world.

The company provides 80-85% of the revenue generated by digital music, merchandise, tickets, or cassettes to the artists daily. With Bandcamp, artists have earned more than $600 million since 2007.

Bandcamp works tirelessly to bring together the communities of musicians, artists, fans, and labels providing them with indispensable tools to build their musical career.

Facebook Bots

The best way to market your music is to engage with your fans directly. But it gets difficult with time. With social media bots such as Facebook Messenger Chatbot, musicians can scale up their engagement, ticketing, and e-commerce.

Moreover, the bot offers a unique benefit to the artist by allowing one-on-one conversations with fans. It is a great way to sell event tickets and merchandise as they get sold very quickly. Also, the fans can get updates about music events, obtain pre-sale codes, etc enhancing the popularity of the musicians.

Wrapping up!

Pouring down your soul into music is the most important aspect of your musical journey. But reaching out to a new audience and managing your marketing performance requires unique skills and resources. Be it Youtube, Spotify, or any other streaming platform, you must continuously refine, improve, and innovate to reach the zenith of your musical career. Which among the listed tools would you use to expand your music?

Comment below your answer!