In this digital world recording artists like myself have a plethora of ways to promote themselves. MP3s have revolutionized the music industry because of their ease of distribution. You can thank Shawn Fanning for that. The Internet can give you access to just about everything in today's world. Establish an online presence and start sending links out to everyone you know.

There are many popular forms of compressed audio file types. Apple's .mp4 file is gaining in popularity because of the success of their iPod. Microsoft's .wma file is also making its way into the market. Both claim to have better sound quality that .mp3s encoded at similar bit rates, however neither are as playback compatible across different operating systems and media players. Perhaps that will soon change but for now I'm sticking with .mp3s for web distribution.

You can encode your .mp3s at different bit rates. Most .mp3s for download are encoded at a bit rate of 128 kilobits per second (kbps). My personal library of music is encoded at 256 kbps to minimize the amount of audible compression artifacts. You can especially notice this during cymbal crashes and live audience applause. Keep in mind that .mp3s will sound a little bit different than uncompressed .wav files. Anything above 15 kHz will be disregarded in the encoding process to cut back on file size.

You also have the option to encode using constant or variable bit rates. Constant bit rate encoding is quick and dirty and is appropriate for most applications. Variable bit rate is dependent on the overall frequency spectrum and signal levels of the audio file and will make a more efficiently encoded .mp3.

Click the following link to download the full-length version of my song, "The Spirits of Tomorrow".

"The Spirits of Tomorrow" - 11.3 MB .mp3 at 224 kbps
Taken from Brian Dobbs' The History of Recorded Music, copyright 2006.

Don't have a website? Get one! Not establishing a web presence will definitely make things a lot harder if you are trying to gain recognition. If you do not know how to code .html documents (make webpages) then consider investing in software that will allow you to create them visually.

Think about registering a domain name that will be easy for someone to remember. If you are a solo artist consider registering a domain with your first and last name. For example, www.BrianDobbs.com. If you are promoting a service or an idea consider using a word or phrase, like www.TheSoloAlbum.com. In my case they point to the same page.

Artistic consistency is essential when designing a website. Define a certain color scheme you will use as a standard. Think about font styles and font sizes. You will typically see websites use 10 pt. Arial because most, if not all, computers have the font already installed by default. Convert any text to a .jpg picture with any font that may not be recognized by end users. Design with compatibility in mind.

The alternative is to sign up for a MySpace account and create your personal profile. Although MySpace is a popular networking tool and allows you to essentially 'create a webpage' without having any design skills whatsoever, it does not substitute for a "dot com." This is especially true if you are trying to convey professionalism. On that note, be sure to run the spell check tool before publishing your webpages.