Making a Scene Presents

The Receipts Era: Why SongProof Is Showing Up Right When Indie Artists Need It Most

There’s a moment every songwriter knows. You’re in that glow right after the hook finally lands, the verse makes sense, and the demo is “good enough” to send. You export an MP3, you toss it into a text thread, you drop it into an email, you DM it to someone who says they can help.

And then, if you’re honest, your stomach tightens for half a second.

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Making a Scene Presents - The Weekend Build: How to Set Up an Owned-Fan Machine in 48 Hours
If you want Spotify to be the top of your funnel instead of the end of your funnel, you don’t start by chasing more streams. You start by building a place for listeners to land, a reason for them to stay, and a system that remembers them when they do.
This is the part the industry skips past because it’s not sexy. Infrastructure rarely is. But infrastructure is what turns a “pretty good” release into a career that compounds. It’s also what makes the Making a Scene philosophy real in practice: indie artists build a music industry middle class by owning the relationship, owning the data, and turning attention into direct revenue—over and over again.

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Making a Scene Presents - Spotify is the Billboard, Not the Building
If you’re an indie artist in 2026, you don’t have a “marketing problem.” You have an ownership problem.
Most indie release plans still follow the same tired loop: post the Spotify link everywhere, chase saves, chase playlists, watch a bump happen, then start over next month. It feels like progress because the numbers move. But it’s not leverage, because you still can’t reach the people who listened unless Spotify decides you can.
Spotify isn’t evil. It’s just not your business partner.

http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - Wingman (Mixed In Key) A Demo Accelerator
Wingman from Mixed In Key ($79) is built for the modern reality: a lot of great songwriters don’t play piano, don’t play bass, and don’t want to spend three hours hunting for the “right” chord under a vocal idea. Wingman lives inside your DAW as a plugin and listens to the audio you feed it, then suggests chords and basslines that fit what it hears. It also includes AI stem separation and audio-to-MIDI tools that help you pull musical structure out of real-world recordings and turn it into something you can arrange. The headline is simple: it’s an AI idea engine that helps you move from a spark to a usable demo faster, without needing to be a multi-instrumentalist.

http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Jordan Rainer
Jordan Rainer is an award-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Atoka, Oklahoma, bringing a bold rock edge to modern country. With a guitar on her shoulder and a no-nonsense stage presence, she’s been turning heads in both Nashville and the Texas country scene, building a reputation as an artist who hits hard, sings with conviction, and connects fast.

http://www.makingascene.org