Based in London, Sound Generator was an Internet based music publication – focusing on a broad range of musical genres. At its peak, the website attracted several hundred thousand readers a month, predominantly from the UK and North America.
Differing from its peers by placing fringe genres – such as world music and classical music – on equal footing with pop and rock, the site delivered daily news, features and interviews, with regular music video postings and album streams.
Editorially, Sound Generator aimed for a broad-ranging audience of serious music fans, while adopting an inclusive, fun attitude in its writing style. It often includes artist-perspective pieces in its copy, and also hosted a large equipment reviews section – which included contributions from many notable producers and composers working in the music industry. The Soundgenerator philosophy has now been incorporated into the larger, fast-growing music community site Tourdates.co.uk.
Sound Generator was conceived by composer Andrew T. Mackay and musician Christopher D. Elkins in 1999 following a lengthy successful working partnership at Gormac Studios in West London.
On June 10, 2008, Soundgenerator was acquired by Tourdates.co.uk for an undisclosed cash consideration.
Tourdates.co.uk is primarily a gig listing website where events, by Signed and Unsigned artists are listed, side by side, in one place. Unsigned Artists, Bands, DJs and Ensembles can create artist profiles, list their gigs, upload promo tracks and add a variety of other information. There is a comprehensive news service and other community features such as blogging.