Friday, September 25, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Singer/Songwriter? Band? ~ Pay Attention!!!
Reasons Why Most Demos Get Rejected.
September 15, 2009 by Producers Live
Filed under Industry Info
10 Reasons Why Most Demo Recordings are Rejected
by Christopher Knab
“Getting a deal” has long been the goal of many would-be artists and bands. For mostly naive reasons, most new talent feel that by securing a recording contract with a significant major or independent label, success will be guaranteed. (talk about naivete). Even in this new era of “do-it-yourself” career building, many musicians figure all they have to do is send off their demo to a label, and a recording contract will come their way .
The following list of ‘10 Reasons Why Demos Are Rejected‘ was gathered together after years of listening to comments made by Record Label A&R reps at music industry conferences and workshops; as well as from personal interviews with reps, and from many interviews A&R reps have given to the press. In addition, I can verify that these observations as true, from having personally listened to thousands of demos over the years.
Since there is little I can do to stop anyone from ‘demo shopping’, (which I truly believe is a waste of time these days) the least I can do is try to improve the odds that your music will get listened to if you do send out your demos. This list will look at the most common mistakes musicians make when either shopping for a record deal, or trying to get the attention of A&R Reps with their demo recordings.
10 Reasons Demos are Rejected:
1. No Contact Information on CDR and/or CDR container
(put your name, address, email, URL, MySpace address, and your phone number on both)
2. Lack of Originality (just because you can record, doesn’t mean your music is worth recording)
3. The Music Is Good, But The Artist Doesn’t Play Live ( this applies to all genres of music except electroninca and experimental music)
4. Poorly Recorded Material ( so you bought ProTools….so what!)
5. Best songs are not identified or highlighted on the CD or the CDR
( send only 3 or 4 songs and highlight the best ones)
6. Sending Videos In Place Of CDRs ( keep it simple, in the demo mode, all anyone wants is to check out your songwriting and musicianship. If you want to send a link to a video you have put-up on YouTube, that would be a better idea then sending a video disc or tape.)
7. Sending Unsolicited Recordings (you sent them, but they never asked for them…which means they will probably mail them back to you.)
8. Sending The Wrong Music To The Wrong Label (you didn’t do your research to find out what labels put out what kind of music, did you?)
9. Musicians Can’t Play Their Instruments Competently (this is so basic, but you would be astounded at how incompetant most start-up musicians are)
10. The Music Sucks (this criticism is as old as music itself. you may think your music is the greatest thing since frappacinos, but most demo recordings the industry receives are as bad as the first round contestants on American Idol)
Christopher Knab is an independent music business consultant based in Seattle, Washington.
source: www.onlinemusicproduction.com
Monday, August 3, 2009
Death of recording studios?
Written by J Appleby
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 18:27
Will economic recession and affordable access to music technology tools overcome the want for expertise, camaraderie and resource of the traditional recording studio? J Appleby gets industry opinion from America about the death of recording studios, but more importantly the death in the quality of music at large.
To create the best sound recordings and mix with maximum control, a proper recording studio with professional engineering has been labelled as essential. However, there are some musical styles which don’t need that sophisticated sound - R&B, Hip Hop and Trance.
Some artists need the space of a major studio to track large sessions and those studios will always have work. But there are artists that choose to produce music that can be created with just keyboards, samplers and drum machines.
Christopher Cooper, owner and producer of Blue Seven Audio in San Francisco, said: “As an engineer with high standards, I’m a little biased toward supporting professional studios. There are more studios, however, that are finding the middle ground between the... (click link for more)
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Shame on you, RIAA
RIAA Disgrace. Shame on you.
http://www.buzzradio1.com/jury-awards-675k-in-boston-music-downloading-case/
Source: Yahoo.com
BOSTON – A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay $675,000 to four record labels. Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels.
Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum’s case was $4.5 million.
Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay $22,500 for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were willful. The attorney for the 25-year-old student had asked the jury earlier Friday to “send a message” to the music industry by awarding only minimal damages.... click on link for full story
