BANDS
0
Posted
October 1, 2007 in
Music
The music industry is not evolving–it has evolved. To attest to the fact, music retailers–such as Tower Records–are closing their doors by the thousands. Record labels are reporting massive losses, yet the popularity of downloading music continues to be on the rise. The reason? Technology for doing business online is cheaper and more reliable than the old model, and recording software is cheaper too. Everybody knows this is an obvious fact. The older methods of doing things have now become nonsensical, and this begs the question: Just what the hell does a band need a record label for, anyway?
Nothing, according to Jeff Price, the founder and CEO of Tunecore and SpinART Records. "The music industry is collapsing around us as we speak," he says. This might seem ironic coming from Price, who has run a successful record label for more than 20 years and produced hit albums from the Pixies, Frank Black (solo) and Kool & the Gang.
But the old model is crashing down–and denial is no way to fend off the inevitable. Price understands the reasons behind the changes, and can’t dispute how efficient (and self-sufficient) technology has made things.
According to him, a band used to require a label to be successful for three reasons–recording, marketing/promotion and manufacturing/distribution.
The first two items bands have been doing on their own for years. But distribution, however–distribution has long been damn nigh impossible for an individual band without backing. Now the reverse is true. Where marketing was a necessary step in getting the CDs off the shelf and into the music aficionado’s stereo, and promotion was necessary to raise the listeners’ awareness that the band exists, proper distribution, up until now, was the golden lure of bands hoping to sign with a major label.
That’s where new technology has dictated a change in the artist/consumer transfer. "It has radically changed the whole music business model," says Price. In part, this is because home recording technology is dirt cheap–and really not all that complicated to learn. Which means: sales of downloadable music–which costs nothing to manufacture–rise, and CD sales fall, taking music stores with them. This makes distributing and promoting CDs–more or less–unimportant.
Thus the reason for this guide.
This is for musicians who are sick of sending out demos only to be ignored. This guide is to remind you that everything is okay–a band used to need a record label, but less so now than ever. All it takes to break on your own is time, a little money, a lot of energy–and some know-how.
Read on, and let the Weekly tackle the know-how.
Recording
"It’s no longer enough to sing or play well," says Dr. Phillip Morrione, chair of the Audio Technology and Music programs and Mt. San Jacinto College in Menifee. "If musicians don’t understand the recording process, they’re likely to become its victim. Musicians must master technology–or be mastered by it." Since Morrione began his recording program in 1986, the quality of home recording technology has skyrocketed. "Ten years ago, band members were buying four- or eight-track recorders. They gave good results if you knew how to use them," he said. "These days, many of my students and local bands use computer software to record at home, and the wonderful thing about these programs is that they add editing and mixing capabilities that the multi-track recorders didn’t have."
Meanwhile, as the quality has shot up, the price has plummeted. "In the past few years good software has finally gotten inexpensive enough for average consumers [to afford]," said Morrione. "I paid $8,000 for the college’s copy of Pro Tools. Today, you can get a copy for a few hundred dollars."
"There’s no need to go to a studio anymore," says "Captain Tuesday," Full Value Entertainment’s recording guru. "If you’re paying a studio and an engineer by the hour, you feel rushed. If you’re in your house, where your beer is cold, you don’t have to worry. You don’t have to rush. Nine times out of ten, you’ll play better."
Tuesday offered another reason to stay away from the studio; courtesy of Full Value Entertainment, he will go to a band’s practice space and record them on his portable set-up. He has recorded dozens of bands in the Inland Empire, such as American Hitmen, Flashbang the Warden, Panama and Nice Day.
For the band that wants to do it DIY-style, Tuesday prepared a list of the basics band members need to record themselves, assuming they already have a computer.
$100 set-up:
–Sound Forge Audio Studio (recording software), price: $59.95 –Any omni-directional microphone, price: $30 –Quarter inch female to 2.5mm male adapter (needed for plugging a mic into a computer), price: $5 The frills: –Shure Drum Microphone Kit (should include four mics), price: $249.95 –AKG condenser vocal microphone (several models are available), price: $100 –PreSonus FireWire interface, which will include CuBase L.E., price: $399.99
Obscurity isn’t guaranteed if you do it on your own. Sony 550 dumped over $1 million to record Bolt Upright’s debut album, Red Carpet Syndrome. They toured with Kid Rock and Static X and . . . what? You haven’t heard of them?
Exactly. Anonymity is for richer or for poorer, as is the relationship between label and band (minus the poorer). No shame in doing it yourself.
Selling
Technology has changed the buying and selling of music more than any other part of the music business, said Price, and there are three reasons for this. First, an online store never runs out of music. "Everything can always be in stock," he says. "And if they run out of room, they just plug in another hard drive."
Second, the online store’s inventory is unlimited. "There’s no manufacturing involved, and there’s no overhead for carrying the inventory," he says. "That’s a huge change."
Lastly, bands no longer need a record label to deal with placing product in stores or outlets. "Any [CD] can be returned for a full refund," he says. "[Technology] totally reduces that [need for a middle-man] to nothing, because the record industry is all about distribution. So, you no longer need a 5,000 square-foot warehouse to distribute your music. Anybody can do it, you just need access."
Access is why technology exists. Price’s company, Tunecore, allows individual musicians to sell their music–in a downloadable format–on all the major music sites, such as iTunes and Napster. Tunecore charges $1 per song to put it on all the sites, and after that, the musician keeps all the profit. "You no longer need the middle-man to gain access to media outlets," says Price. "The music industry is reinventing itself, but the distribution business is fucked."
Though more costly, SNOCAP offers another way for individual musicians to sell their music online. After uploading their music, SNOCAP allows them to paste a storefront onto the band’s website or MySpace page from which fans can buy their music.
"This would be the most cost-effective way to sell music directly off your site," says Lynda Brown, head of Wow Webs, a web-design firm based in Corona. "[Designing] a custom cart for downloading music would cost a minimum of $5,000."
Anyway you choose, Brown highly recommends selling your music online. "Only a chosen few get record contracts, and it isn’t about talent, it’s about who you know," she says. "The web has offered an innovative way for bands to get their music published and noticed."
According to an Entertainment Media Research study, the popularity of legal downloading is growing in every age group, and is showing no sign of slowing down. "Acquiring the music immediately remains the strongest driver to purchase," stated the report. Nearly 60 percent of poll respondents cited "to get hold of the music immediately" as their main motivation for downloading music. We are a culture of convenience. Because of this, last year–thanks to the lure of instant gratification–SpinArt made more than 50 percent of its sales on iTunes.
Promoting
Promoting includes anything a band does to get its name or music noticed, and to hear Price tell it, the task is totally "simple."
The most straightforward way to do this is frequent gigging. However, with many venues expecting bands to slave away selling hundreds of tickets for the privilege of playing their room, this method of promotion is less fun (and more beside the point) than ever.
Matt Anderson, booking agent for Impending Doom and xDeathstarx, has another alternative: throw your own show, and hire a big-name band to headline. This is so obvious that most bands don’t think to do it. For booking out his larger acts for such events, he says all a band need to do is "get in touch with me–but be clear with the date, time and place. That makes me feel like you know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to fall apart at the last minute."
A lot of bands have information on who to call to book them on their website, says Anderson. Oftentimes, the booking agent will be more than happy to land a group a gig if they are passing through on tour. Each band will ask a different price to play the show, but the prices are usually "very negotiable," he says.
Moreover, renting a venue is an easier process that it would seem, according to Bill Gould of Full Value Entertainment. Last May, he rented the Temecula Community Recreation Center for a three-day-long music festival, and found the city was helpful. "The city was behind that whole event." He declined to say exactly how much they charged, but called it "very reasonable."
Tours take a little more time to organize, but bands can still do it themselves, according to Dominic Carcioppolo of the Inland Empire rock band Inverse. "Do it yourself [touring] is a necessity, whereas years back it was more of a choice," he said. "Record labels use to pick up bands and give them development deals, and throw money their way [for promotion.] Now, record labels expect you to do that all on your own."
Inverse has toured numerous times in the last two years, and arranged each tour on their own. First, Carcioppolo used a search engine to find venues in the states to which he wanted to go. Then, he picked up the phone and called them.
Other than playing live, the most important way to promote your band is through "merch," according to Cody Cloe, a graphic design trainer for Apple and the singer of the Inland Empire imports, Time Spent Burning. "Especially when talking about a small band, promotion is the most important thing, and the most important item for promotion is CDs," he says. Cloe gives away CDs with samples of TSB’s music at every show. His advice is simple: "Put all your money into promotion. The more people that see your name on a shirt, CD or sticker, the easier you’ll make money later."
Besides, people love souvenirs. One of Cloe’s favorite promotion techniques is a time-honored classic: passing out free stickers. "It’s a lot easier to use somebody else’s footwork than to do it all yourself," he says. "It’s like hiring someone to advertise for your band, and then paying them in stickers." This grassroots technique still gets people’s attention. After Cloe and a friend spent a day at Disneyland putting stickers everywhere they went, the songs on their MySpace page got 150 additional plays.
T-shirts are the bread and butter for a touring band, and Cloe sells out at nearly every show. "There are a ton of different merchandise companies in Southern California," he says. His advice is to draw up your logo, scan it into your computer, use Photoshop to clean up any stray marks and call some screen-printers to check prices.
A little creativity can go a long way in marketing. Last month, at the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois, Cloe had the TSB logo printed onto two hundred bright-red Frisbees. These rubber projectiles also read, "First 300 people to visit the Time Spent Burning booth get our new unreleased tracks, free!" They not only gave away their CDs and sold out of merchandise completely, but saw their logo flying around for the duration of the festival.
In 40 days, Tunecore will make marketing merchandise even easier. They will begin a program in which bands can sell their stuff online in the same way they sell their music. In addition, Tunecore will add five percent to the money made on music sales if the musician spends it at Guitar Center.
"Being in a band has become a cottage industry," Price says.
And, as long as your little cottage has Pro Tools, who needs WEA?
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The music industry is not evolving–it has evolved. To attest to the fact, music retailers–such as Tower Records–are closing their doors by the thousands. Record labels are reporting massive losses, yet the popularity of downloading music continues to be on the rise. The reason? Technology for doing business online is cheaper and more reliable than the old model, and recording software is cheaper too. Everybody knows this is an obvious fact. The older methods of doing things have now become nonsensical, and this begs the question: Just what the hell does a band need a record label for, anyway?
Nothing, according to Jeff Price, the founder and CEO of Tunecore and SpinART Records. "The music industry is collapsing around us as we speak," he says. This might seem ironic coming from Price, who has run a successful record label for more than 20 years and produced hit albums from the Pixies, Frank Black (solo) and Kool & the Gang.
But the old model is crashing down–and denial is no way to fend off the inevitable. Price understands the reasons behind the changes, and can’t dispute how efficient (and self-sufficient) technology has made things.
According to him, a band used to require a label to be successful for three reasons–recording, marketing/promotion and manufacturing/distribution.
The first two items bands have been doing on their own for years. But distribution, however–distribution has long been damn nigh impossible for an individual band without backing. Now the reverse is true. Where marketing was a necessary step in getting the CDs off the shelf and into the music aficionado’s stereo, and promotion was necessary to raise the listeners’ awareness that the band exists, proper distribution, up until now, was the golden lure of bands hoping to sign with a major label.
That’s where new technology has dictated a change in the artist/consumer transfer. "It has radically changed the whole music business model," says Price. In part, this is because home recording technology is dirt cheap–and really not all that complicated to learn. Which means: sales of downloadable music–which costs nothing to manufacture–rise, and CD sales fall, taking music stores with them. This makes distributing and promoting CDs–more or less–unimportant.
Thus the reason for this guide.
This is for musicians who are sick of sending out demos only to be ignored. This guide is to remind you that everything is okay–a band used to need a record label, but less so now than ever. All it takes to break on your own is time, a little money, a lot of energy–and some know-how.
Read on, and let the Weekly tackle the know-how.
Recording
"It’s no longer enough to sing or play well," says Dr. Phillip Morrione, chair of the Audio Technology and Music programs and Mt. San Jacinto College in Menifee. "If musicians don’t understand the recording process, they’re likely to become its victim. Musicians must master technology–or be mastered by it." Since Morrione began his recording program in 1986, the quality of home recording technology has skyrocketed. "Ten years ago, band members were buying four- or eight-track recorders. They gave good results if you knew how to use them," he said. "These days, many of my students and local bands use computer software to record at home, and the wonderful thing about these programs is that they add editing and mixing capabilities that the multi-track recorders didn’t have."
Meanwhile, as the quality has shot up, the price has plummeted. "In the past few years good software has finally gotten inexpensive enough for average consumers [to afford]," said Morrione. "I paid $8,000 for the college’s copy of Pro Tools. Today, you can get a copy for a few hundred dollars."
"There’s no need to go to a studio anymore," says "Captain Tuesday," Full Value Entertainment’s recording guru. "If you’re paying a studio and an engineer by the hour, you feel rushed. If you’re in your house, where your beer is cold, you don’t have to worry. You don’t have to rush. Nine times out of ten, you’ll play better."
Tuesday offered another reason to stay away from the studio; courtesy of Full Value Entertainment, he will go to a band’s practice space and record them on his portable set-up. He has recorded dozens of bands in the Inland Empire, such as American Hitmen, Flashbang the Warden, Panama and Nice Day.
For the band that wants to do it DIY-style, Tuesday prepared a list of the basics band members need to record themselves, assuming they already have a computer.
$100 set-up:
–Sound Forge Audio Studio (recording software), price: $59.95 –Any omni-directional microphone, price: $30 –Quarter inch female to 2.5mm male adapter (needed for plugging a mic into a computer), price: $5 The frills: –Shure Drum Microphone Kit (should include four mics), price: $249.95 –AKG condenser vocal microphone (several models are available), price: $100 –PreSonus FireWire interface, which will include CuBase L.E., price: $399.99
Obscurity isn’t guaranteed if you do it on your own. Sony 550 dumped over $1 million to record Bolt Upright’s debut album, Red Carpet Syndrome. They toured with Kid Rock and Static X and . . . what? You haven’t heard of them?
Exactly. Anonymity is for richer or for poorer, as is the relationship between label and band (minus the poorer). No shame in doing it yourself.
Selling
Technology has changed the buying and selling of music more than any other part of the music business, said Price, and there are three reasons for this. First, an online store never runs out of music. "Everything can always be in stock," he says. "And if they run out of room, they just plug in another hard drive."
Second, the online store’s inventory is unlimited. "There’s no manufacturing involved, and there’s no overhead for carrying the inventory," he says. "That’s a huge change."
Lastly, bands no longer need a record label to deal with placing product in stores or outlets. "Any [CD] can be returned for a full refund," he says. "[Technology] totally reduces that [need for a middle-man] to nothing, because the record industry is all about distribution. So, you no longer need a 5,000 square-foot warehouse to distribute your music. Anybody can do it, you just need access."
Access is why technology exists. Price’s company, Tunecore, allows individual musicians to sell their music–in a downloadable format–on all the major music sites, such as iTunes and Napster. Tunecore charges $1 per song to put it on all the sites, and after that, the musician keeps all the profit. "You no longer need the middle-man to gain access to media outlets," says Price. "The music industry is reinventing itself, but the distribution business is fucked."
Though more costly, SNOCAP offers another way for individual musicians to sell their music online. After uploading their music, SNOCAP allows them to paste a storefront onto the band’s website or MySpace page from which fans can buy their music.
"This would be the most cost-effective way to sell music directly off your site," says Lynda Brown, head of Wow Webs, a web-design firm based in Corona. "[Designing] a custom cart for downloading music would cost a minimum of $5,000."
Anyway you choose, Brown highly recommends selling your music online. "Only a chosen few get record contracts, and it isn’t about talent, it’s about who you know," she says. "The web has offered an innovative way for bands to get their music published and noticed."
According to an Entertainment Media Research study, the popularity of legal downloading is growing in every age group, and is showing no sign of slowing down. "Acquiring the music immediately remains the strongest driver to purchase," stated the report. Nearly 60 percent of poll respondents cited "to get hold of the music immediately" as their main motivation for downloading music. We are a culture of convenience. Because of this, last year–thanks to the lure of instant gratification–SpinArt made more than 50 percent of its sales on iTunes.
Promoting
Promoting includes anything a band does to get its name or music noticed, and to hear Price tell it, the task is totally "simple."
The most straightforward way to do this is frequent gigging. However, with many venues expecting bands to slave away selling hundreds of tickets for the privilege of playing their room, this method of promotion is less fun (and more beside the point) than ever.
Matt Anderson, booking agent for Impending Doom and xDeathstarx, has another alternative: throw your own show, and hire a big-name band to headline. This is so obvious that most bands don’t think to do it. For booking out his larger acts for such events, he says all a band need to do is "get in touch with me–but be clear with the date, time and place. That makes me feel like you know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to fall apart at the last minute."
A lot of bands have information on who to call to book them on their website, says Anderson. Oftentimes, the booking agent will be more than happy to land a group a gig if they are passing through on tour. Each band will ask a different price to play the show, but the prices are usually "very negotiable," he says.
Moreover, renting a venue is an easier process that it would seem, according to Bill Gould of Full Value Entertainment. Last May, he rented the Temecula Community Recreation Center for a three-day-long music festival, and found the city was helpful. "The city was behind that whole event." He declined to say exactly how much they charged, but called it "very reasonable."
Tours take a little more time to organize, but bands can still do it themselves, according to Dominic Carcioppolo of the Inland Empire rock band Inverse. "Do it yourself [touring] is a necessity, whereas years back it was more of a choice," he said. "Record labels use to pick up bands and give them development deals, and throw money their way [for promotion.] Now, record labels expect you to do that all on your own."
Inverse has toured numerous times in the last two years, and arranged each tour on their own. First, Carcioppolo used a search engine to find venues in the states to which he wanted to go. Then, he picked up the phone and called them.
Other than playing live, the most important way to promote your band is through "merch," according to Cody Cloe, a graphic design trainer for Apple and the singer of the Inland Empire imports, Time Spent Burning. "Especially when talking about a small band, promotion is the most important thing, and the most important item for promotion is CDs," he says. Cloe gives away CDs with samples of TSB’s music at every show. His advice is simple: "Put all your money into promotion. The more people that see your name on a shirt, CD or sticker, the easier you’ll make money later."
Besides, people love souvenirs. One of Cloe’s favorite promotion techniques is a time-honored classic: passing out free stickers. "It’s a lot easier to use somebody else’s footwork than to do it all yourself," he says. "It’s like hiring someone to advertise for your band, and then paying them in stickers." This grassroots technique still gets people’s attention. After Cloe and a friend spent a day at Disneyland putting stickers everywhere they went, the songs on their MySpace page got 150 additional plays.
T-shirts are the bread and butter for a touring band, and Cloe sells out at nearly every show. "There are a ton of different merchandise companies in Southern California," he says. His advice is to draw up your logo, scan it into your computer, use Photoshop to clean up any stray marks and call some screen-printers to check prices.
A little creativity can go a long way in marketing. Last month, at the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois, Cloe had the TSB logo printed onto two hundred bright-red Frisbees. These rubber projectiles also read, "First 300 people to visit the Time Spent Burning booth get our new unreleased tracks, free!" They not only gave away their CDs and sold out of merchandise completely, but saw their logo flying around for the duration of the festival.
In 40 days, Tunecore will make marketing merchandise even easier. They will begin a program in which bands can sell their stuff online in the same way they sell their music. In addition, Tunecore will add five percent to the money made on music sales if the musician spends it at Guitar Center.
"Being in a band has become a cottage industry," Price says.
And, as long as your little cottage has Pro Tools, who needs WEA?
