We recently released a new theme that features a cool duotone effect to make header images standout in the demo. Even cooler than the effect is how easy it is to achieve with gradient maps in Photoshop.

If you’ve visited AudioTheme within the past couple of weeks you probably noticed we got a fresh coat of paint. If you’re new here, you might be wondering, “What exactly is AudioTheme?” That’s a good a question.

On one hand, it’s our company name. We sell audio-centric WordPress themes for people who make music (musicians, songwriters, bands, etc.). Our themes include functionality to manage discographies, gigs, venues, and video libraries. Powering all of those features, to make them portable from one theme to another, is a plugin we built — also called AudioTheme.

It’s no secret that we’re not huge fans of sliders, which is why we don’t typically add them to our themes. There are numerous documented pitfalls, but we’re not here to limit what you can do.

In fact, we try to make our themes as easy to work with as possible, and that includes extending them. We enjoy seeing people customize our work and some of our favorite sites are the ones people have made their own.

We receive regular support requests from customers who want to replace the hero image in Promenade with a slider. Our typical response is that it is possible, but requires customization via a child theme or functionality plugin.

However, we understand not everyone is comfortable jumping into code.

With that in mind, we recently added a couple of custom plugins to our support resources to provide simple integration with existing slider plugins.

Have fun and feel free to drop us a line to let us know if there are any popular plugins you would like to see us support.

Finding and listening to your music is one of the main reasons someone will visit your website. Your music should be easy for people to find, navigate, and enjoy.

Here’s a rundown on some of the best options for streaming music on WordPress sites.

We recently had the opportunity to chat with Virginia-bred and Rhode Island-based singer/songwriter Pat McGee. Pat’s latest album is his 10th effort, and includes tracks with studio legends Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Waddy Wachtel, Danny Kortchmar, and Jeff Pevar.

In addition to the studio details, Pat also discussed how he crowdfunded the album, his yearly self-hosted music festival, what he likes most about his AudioTheme website, and his best advice for musicians trying to make a name for themselves.

Let’s be honest. The music industry is not easy to break into. Forget the odds of becoming a national or worldwide sensation… It can be difficult to make a comfortable living as a musician.

Bookings, promotions, signings, recordings, and funding can sometimes seem to be totally out of your control. Is there a better way? What if you could “hack” the music industry?

We recently asked a group of musicians of all genres and levels to share the best piece of advice they had ever gotten for their career. Here are some of our favorite responses.

We’re music fans. And we’re interested in the artists who use our products. So we’ve made it easy to track AudioTheme artists by beginning to assemble the AudioTheme Artist Twitter List.

This is just one of the ways we’re looking to provide support and resources to the musicians who use our products.

Want to be on the list? Shoot us an email with your Twitter @handle and other social media links or send us a tweet.

Permalinks are the URLs people use to access content on your site. Luckily, WordPress gives you the option to change the permalink structure of your website. This allows for easier sharing, intuitive navigation, and gives your site some added SEO functionality.

WordPress, by default, uses a http://example.com/?p=%ID% structure. As you are probably aware, this is not very user friendly. Imagine explaining to someone that in order to hear some of your music, they should visit http://example.com/?p=123.