Hotspot on Trax Music Ressources Center
Trax is a crucial one-stop-shopping resource for both musicians and venue owners in Second Life.
The establishment offers promotional listening booths for artists, as well as free advertising for live music venues, which facilitates efficient networking.
“I wanted to provide a centralized place where music enthusiasts could come together and share ideas,” said creator Bones Writer, a real life musician for over 30 years, “Not just the marketing aspects, but a place for education as well.”
Writer delights in sharing how he came upon several internationally-based musicians engaged in an informal discussion about how to integrate Garage band into their performances.
“This is exactly the kind of thing I had hoped for when I started this place,” he said. “That Trax would become a unifying place where musicians could learn from each other and share ideas.”
The listening booth is Writer’s original concept, created at first to allow people to listen to his own music when he was not physically online—then evolving to showcase roughly 150 of SL’s best musicians under one roof.
The rental listening booths include MP3 songs of the artist’s, a link to their calendar of events, a picture, biography and also an outlet to sell the artist’s CD as well.
“I can also create an in-world CD for musicians which includes some really awesome new 3D packaging concepts,” said Writer.
The CDs are also sold at Trax as a part of the service fee to create them. Many artists are thrilled with the work Writer has produced for them.
“I sat with Bones and explained the concept I had in mind for my CD and he totally brought my vision to life,” said Clark Thatcher, an original songwriter and musician who just released his first CD.
Trax offers live events and concerts, including Bones Writer himself from time to time. In addition there is a resource center with connections to agents, managers, photographers and biography writers to assist musicians in promoting themselves in SL.
“The place is continuously evolving, with new artists coming in everyday and older, more established artists leaving once they have a strong fan base.”
Many would agree that the entire face of the music and recording industry has changed drastically since
the integration of digital music streams and file sharing.
“I have a lot of friends in the real life music business who kept whining about the death of the industry,” said Writer. “The whole fabric has changed. I hoped to create something new from something that has died...instead of crying, I adapted and went with it.”
Writer talked about the many strengths that SL offers musicians.
“Second Life allows you to perform to a global audience in an interactive manner,” he said. “This provides a much more intimate environment where a musician can actually talk with the crowd and enjoy the social aspects.”
Writer said he hopes that in some small way Trax is able to help facilitate that kind of interaction.
“The internet has been both good and bad for musicians,” said Writer. “On one hand you have the pirating and file-sharing that takes away a lot of the traditional recording income. On the other hand musicians are totally empowered to promote themselves on a global scale.”
Writer said that ITunes calls the file sharing “An acceptable loss,” but that this is really a false sense of security on protecting your intellectual property.
According to Writer many musicians say they enjoy Trax because they want to focus on actually performing the music, most are not concerned with the business or marketing side of it—yet they know this is an important aspect.
"I think the Trax idea is the best thing to happen for both SL musicians and venue owners," said Rock Doghouse, an accomplished musician who has a listening booth at Trax. "It cuts through all the confusion."
Doghouse said Writer is super helpful and an amazing musician himself.
Luckily for SL artists Writer understands their dilemma, has lived in their world and created Trax which provides an effective solution for all.
