Why The Music Industry Sucks Part 978 |
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Oct 23 2010, 01:13 PM
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I kind of get used to seeing some very good musicians struggle to make a living making music. Nonetheless I just had a discussion with a producer who I master for which upset me a bit. We've just completed the production and mastering for a single for a singer/songwriter and I mentioned that I thought I recognised the guy's name. Not surprising - the guy had been signed to and released a couple of albums on a major label, one of which was nominated for some major awards and I believe it went silver in the UK for sales. He's no longer with the major as they decided that he's not commercial enough.
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Replies
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Oct 23 2010, 03:29 PM
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His second album went silver within the first few months after release (and has probably now gone gold) so it was selling
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-------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
Be friends on facebook with us here. We use professional, mastering grade hardware in our mastering studo. Our hardware includes: Cranesong Avocet II Monitor Controller, Dangerous Music Liasion Insert Hardware Router, ATC SCM Pro Monitors, Lavry Black DA11, Prism Orpheus ADC/DAC, Gyratec Gyraf XIV Parallel Passive Mastering EQ, Great River MAQ 2NV Mastering EQ, Kush Clariphonic Parallel EQ Shelf, Maselec MLA-2 Mastering Compressor, API 2500 Mastering Compressor, Eventide Eclipse Reverb/Echo. |
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Oct 23 2010, 04:21 PM
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Yes it did used to be the case Ben that you were ok if you went silver.
Nowadays the return on investment model that some (maybe all) of the big labels use is more extreme though. Part of the issue is that they find that the ROI is much better if they re-release old material rather than new recordings. Which is a major reason why there are so many 'best of' type compilations about now. Their industry accountants then expect new groups to meet the same ROI and churn but at the same time they put little in to marketing the new material. The economics of the industry, which has always been distorted, has gotten worse over the last five years or so for us suppliers. All the indie mastering and recording studios (including us) were shifted from a 30 day payment on account to a 90 day one a few years ago. This year that has now being stretched out to 120+ days. Small indies have little choice but to do the work and wait 120 days to get paid. Makes a real mess of cash flow and I know 2 studios that went bust this year because of it. -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
Be friends on facebook with us here. We use professional, mastering grade hardware in our mastering studo. Our hardware includes: Cranesong Avocet II Monitor Controller, Dangerous Music Liasion Insert Hardware Router, ATC SCM Pro Monitors, Lavry Black DA11, Prism Orpheus ADC/DAC, Gyratec Gyraf XIV Parallel Passive Mastering EQ, Great River MAQ 2NV Mastering EQ, Kush Clariphonic Parallel EQ Shelf, Maselec MLA-2 Mastering Compressor, API 2500 Mastering Compressor, Eventide Eclipse Reverb/Echo. |
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Oct 23 2010, 08:22 PM
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Tony is quite right in that the current state of the music biz is a bit sad. At the same time, there is a positive angle in that the gatekeepers no longer have any keys. Anybody can make music and distribute it and create a fan base with home recording gear and the internet.
GETTING YOUR MUSIC IN THE APPLE iTUNES STORE I thought this would be a good spot to mention TUNECORE.com. This company can get your music in to the iTunes Store so that people from all over the world can buy it and get it on their ipod or computer. The service is Fee Based so it isn't free. I have had friends who've used it and have heard good things so far. I plan to put my next project out this way as well. Don't think of it as a way to sell millions of copies. It's just a way to get your music somewhere that people can easily find it and buy it to support your efforts. http://www.tunecore.com Todd This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Oct 23 2010, 08:24 PM |
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Oct 23 2010, 08:50 PM
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QUOTE (Todd Simpson @ Oct 23 2010, 09:22 PM)  Tony is quite right in that the current state of the music biz is a bit sad. At the same time, there is a positive angle in that the gatekeepers no longer have any keys. Anybody can make music and distribute it and create a fan base with home recording gear and the internet. GETTING YOUR MUSIC IN THE APPLE iTUNES STORE I thought this would be a good spot to mention TUNECORE.com. This company can get your music in to the iTunes Store so that people from all over the world can buy it and get it on their ipod or computer. The service is Fee Based so it isn't free. I have had friends who've used it and have heard good things so far. I plan to put my next project out this way as well. Don't think of it as a way to sell millions of copies. It's just a way to get your music somewhere that people can easily find it and buy it to support your efforts. http://www.tunecore.com Todd This is really interesting about tunecore and I would love to hear more detailed first hand experiences. For example how many sales over which period of time? How are reports working? Are songs available in all the stores they advertise? Its really cool that nowadays you can distribute music on your own. Only downside in relation to past is that there may be lowering of standards set before. For example we all know what are differences in home recording and professional ones. Major record labels were I guess acting as a filter to both quality of sound and music itself. Of course they can't find all the great musicians and give them a chance but what comes out in the end is somewhat "quality". But generally this isn't a downside after all, there will be more quantity and its our job anyway to find "quality" which we like to listen. -------------------- For GMC support please email support (at) guitarmasterclass.net
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Oct 24 2010, 12:34 PM
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QUOTE (Bogdan Radovic @ Oct 23 2010, 07:50 PM) This is really interesting about tunecore and I would love to hear more detailed first hand experiences. For example how many sales over which period of time? How are reports working? Are songs available in all the stores they advertise? Can't find it at the moment but there was an industry article a year or so ago that compared how many mp3s needed to be sold to provide the same return as 1000Cds. I can't remember the exact figure but the difference was quite staggering - something like an order of 500. To re-phrase that a little - you would have to sell 500 mp3 tracks of your song on itunes to get the same amount of money as selling 1 CD of it in a normal shop. Most recordings have limited shelf time. Something like 85-95% of sales occur in the first 2 weeks after release for singles and 3 months for albums. Shelf time can be increased by time shifting/phasing a release and repackaging. Once a recording has passed it's shelf life chances are that it will at best be heavily discounted and at worst discontinued. Albums like 'Dark Side of the Moon' and 'Sgt Peppers' which continue to sell years after release are in the minority. AFAIK no re-distributor guarantees that your song will be available in any or all of the stores they list. What they claim is that they will provide it to i-tunes/amazon etc for them to stock at their discretion. Most re-distributors use a two tier system - you either pay a one off set fee for them to take your song and ship to i-tunes/amazon etc Or they take a percentage of the turnover and a lower set fee. It's left up to you to decide which is better for you. For i-tunes etc to even consider stocking your song it needs ISRC and possibly a bar code. If you don't have an ISRC (ie you are not a record label) then most re-distributors will assign an ISRC, which often means your recording becomes part of their label's catalogue. Any performance royalties are sent to whoever holds the ISRC and it is up to them to then pay the artist. Apart from assigning ISRC etc most re-distributors also provide a 'mastering' service linked to their appointed mastering studio as an additional cost extra. What the conditions are and what the costs are I really don't know and it would be un-professional of me to comment on the quality of a master from one of these services without knowing the ins and outs. Some distributors, albeit that they are in the minority, only deal with a limited number of labels, others may refuse your song if they don't like it. QUOTE Its really cool that nowadays you can distribute music on your own. Only downside in relation to past is that there may be lowering of standards set before. For example we all know what are differences in home recording and professional ones. Major record labels were I guess acting as a filter to both quality of sound and music itself. Of course they can't find all the great musicians and give them a chance but what comes out in the end is somewhat "quality". But generally this isn't a downside after all, there will be more quantity and its our job anyway to find "quality" which we like to listen. Big labels have an advantage in that they are able to access professional recording, mixing, mastering and are able to bring in professional producers. Some take it further by having their own in-house facilities. Most major labels claw the cost back by expecting the artist to pay this out of their advance. To some extent there is a quality assurance here because majors use professional facilities. Professional here relates to the equipment and experience of the studio/engineer/producer. All they worry about is that it's done to the quality that they expect. For a recording studio they expect then to know and be able to use and set up the best and most appropriate mic and pre-amps. For a mix studio they expect them to have suitable gear for EQ, compression and to know how to, for instance, apply parallel compression on a vocal. Don't know what parallel compression is and when and how to use it - then they won't regard you as good enough. For a mastering studio they expect us to fully meet Red Book quality. With the contracts that we have with majors this 'professionalism' was regarded as more important than the actual price we charge. TBH on a large budget recording, particularly when the costs are clawed back from the artist, the label isn't particularly bothered if they pay me 'X' or Greg Calbi at Sterling 4000USD to master the same release. That 'quality' btw isn't necessarily that the recording sounds great but that there are no issues at the replication plant. Put it another way - a major will not be happy if the plant runs off 30000 CDs which all playback problems. Very few home studios are set up and gain staged properly. Even if they have professional level equipment they will not get a professional quality from the equipment because of this. In short the audio may sound good but it will not be as good as it could have been if the equipment was set up and used professionally. Most home studios have pro-sumer level equipment at best, and consumer at worst. Whilst this may be fine for demo and home use it will not meet the same quality as professional equipment. Whilst many might not notice this lower standard it is because they monitor on pro-sumer or consumer quality equipment. Simply, quality wise you can not be aware of or deal appropriately with issues that you can not accurately hear. That's fine for home/demo but not for a commercial release. With home recording - very few go to physical CD replication plants. Those that are physically reproduced are often done on duplication rather than replication. Duplication can be good if done at a good, reputable plant. BUT a lot of dups are burnt on consumer CD-Writers. These very often have high C1 errors and also, and worse still, C2 and CU errors. At best you get an inferior CDA, at worst you get one that is distorted, drops data and may well be unplayable. Very few consumer CD-Writers will burn important meta-data like ISRC. Also, very few home recordings meet the relevant standard (ie red book for audio) but this will often not be known because it isn't checked at duplication. Many home recordings don't bother with CDA at all but render to mp3. I think we know what the audio quality issues are with mp3s but what is often missed is that most mp3 encoders are not able to add ISRC etc as part of the ID3 tag. Furthermore, most home recordings are also not aware of the issues that surround mp3s with respect to gaps, silences, fades and x-fades between and within tracks. If you listen to some mp3s they may include a couple of seconds of the previous song's fade because of these issues. Now to come back to Bogdan's point that major labels used to do the quality filter for us - very true. If you go in to an old fashioned record shop you can read the sleeve notes to see who produced it, where and who mastered it and where. In the digital age where a lot of material is home produced though the quality filter is often either missed completely or parts are cut and we have little, if any, chance to read the sleeve notes. Yes you can listen to a sample of streaming audio on your pc but this is hardly hi-fi. For most of us we only get to hear if the quality is there after we've paid for the product. --------------------------- That's largely about audio quality - what the internet has done is increase the variety and volume of music that is now available. We can listen to a stream from i-tunes or whichever digital source we want and decide if we like the aesthetic quality. That's a huge step forward and broadens choice considerably. Nonetheless there is a possible downside - finding what you like in the vast amount of material that is available. To some extent databases that suggest material based on your known likes are a huge help but are dependent on the quality of the database. Gracenote - a music DB where you tag the genre etc of your recording is great but often isn't used for digital re-distributions. Quite simply if your recording isn't adequately identified on the database then it may well be missed. Similarly with social networking - great to promote your music and find music you like but the onus is on promoting/finding it easily. If you look at any of the record industry Q and A and forums over the last few years they all have many people asking how to use social networking and distribution databases effectively. Perhaps because of this there are some companies that now say that they provide this service. How well they do this though... -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
Be friends on facebook with us here. We use professional, mastering grade hardware in our mastering studo. Our hardware includes: Cranesong Avocet II Monitor Controller, Dangerous Music Liasion Insert Hardware Router, ATC SCM Pro Monitors, Lavry Black DA11, Prism Orpheus ADC/DAC, Gyratec Gyraf XIV Parallel Passive Mastering EQ, Great River MAQ 2NV Mastering EQ, Kush Clariphonic Parallel EQ Shelf, Maselec MLA-2 Mastering Compressor, API 2500 Mastering Compressor, Eventide Eclipse Reverb/Echo. |
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Oct 26 2010, 02:51 AM
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I'm sorry to say it, but big companies and studios are going down rapidly. Music industry is changing and the gap between indie and commercial releases is becoming wider and wider. It all become one big business where there is no interest in music. But, indie scene will succeed. Talent will overcome technology, and again artists with enough originality will become famous, despite the fact that they recorded & mastered in semi-pro studios, and despite the fact that their music is being spread as mp3's. It simply doesn't matter anymore. All the best quality won't help when the song is bad, so in the end, only the ones that make a good song will succeed. The rest can try to hide this fact with big production costs, and aggressive marketing, but this is just short term success. It cannot last.
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Oct 28 2010, 09:05 PM
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QUOTE (Bogdan Radovic @ Oct 23 2010, 03:50 PM) This is really interesting about tunecore and I would love to hear more detailed first hand experiences. For example how many sales over which period of time? ... Check out the Tunecore.com web site for more details. http://www.tunecore.com It's a pretty good deal for artists who would like to skip the record label and do it themselves. The good news about TUNECORE is that you keep 100% of your royalties. You just pay them per song or per album to set it up and get it on the store. So for the little guy it's a great way to even the playing field. You still have to promote your own music, they are not going to do it for you. But if you price at 99 cents per song and can sell a few hundred downloads, thats a few hundred bux. If you can sell 10,000, thats ten grand on your pocket. But that would take wads of promotion and touring. Mostly its a way just to get your music out there and available to people. Also, tunecore gives you a free barcode so you have a legit product number. As the music biz crumbles around us, it's time to take the reins and take charge of your own music and your own music career. Don't get me wrong, it's HARD, nearly impossible. But there has never been a better time to be an indie musician. Todd |
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Oct 29 2010, 07:51 PM
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QUOTE (Todd Simpson @ Oct 28 2010, 09:05 PM) Check out the Tunecore.com web site for more details. http://www.tunecore.com It's a pretty good deal for artists who would like to skip the record label and do it themselves. The good news about TUNECORE is that you keep 100% of your royalties. You just pay them per song or per album to set it up and get it on the store. So for the little guy it's a great way to even the playing field. You still have to promote your own music, they are not going to do it for you. But if you price at 99 cents per song and can sell a few hundred downloads, thats a few hundred bux. If you can sell 10,000, thats ten grand on your pocket. But that would take wads of promotion and touring. Mostly its a way just to get your music out there and available to people. Also, tunecore gives you a free barcode so you have a legit product number. As the music biz crumbles around us, it's time to take the reins and take charge of your own music and your own music career. Don't get me wrong, it's HARD, nearly impossible. But there has never been a better time to be an indie musician. Todd Well said mate, very rousing! I hink there are promotional issues with self release, trying to get your music heard amongst the glut of facebook, myspace, YT etc is a tall order but it can be done im sure! |
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Nov 9 2010, 01:11 AM
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The music industry is definitely very flawed. It's not geared towards helping the musicians what so ever.True that most artists don't make any money, but if a writer or painter was doing comparably as well as a band who went silver or gold then they would be making a living at it. My old band didn't sell anything near that much, but our first album sold 10,000 copies......and I've never seen a penny. Not that I ever expected to, I went in to contract signing never hoping to get paid for it after having a long conversation with our entertainment lawyer about how it was a standard contract for an indie label and not to expect any money...but it does make you wonder where all the money goes, right? I've read recently that in the US a band has to either have 2 albums go platinum or 1 go double platinum before they actually start making any money. That seems a bit excessive, but it wouldn't surprise me. Not to disappoint any aspiring musicians, but this is a great article to read:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html It's by Steve Albini and was recommended to me by a friend in the music industry early on. It kind of helps lift the veil a little and lets you see the monster for what it really is. The best part is the financial break down at the end and the very last line shows what each band member made for the year. I think the best thing to take away from it though is that if you do plan on trying to make a career out of it it's you'd better be doing it for fun, because there really isn't any money in it for the musicians. Also, it's also good to decide on what else you want out of life. Like if you want a family, career, kids, or to finish school. Then set a time frame of when you need to start working towards those things. I've known quite a few people who get in to their 30's and realize they haven't done anything else they wanted to with their life because they've been "chasing the dream" too long. |
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Nov 9 2010, 06:17 AM
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QUOTE (SensE @ Nov 8 2010, 11:36 PM) I feel so depressed after hearing the fact about the music industry. I knew it was bad but never told the details. What Ivan said is so inspiring and I'm overwhelmed ! This is the belief that every musicians should have. I always think this is a great video. It's Frank Zappa talking about the decline of the music industry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0 |
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Nov 9 2010, 01:39 PM
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QUOTE (brandon @ Nov 9 2010, 12:11 AM) ... It's by Steve Albini and was recommended to me by a friend in the music industry early on. It kind of helps lift the veil a little and lets you see the monster for what it really is. The best part is the financial break down at the end and the very last line shows what each band member made for the year. ... I think the figures he's quoting are not far out. Years ago a band I was in signed to a major and we saw maybe 5% of the advance - the rest was clawed back by the record label for various things. One thing to add is that these are probably the figures that the record company/label accountant will present to band management rather than what the label pays. Very few mastering houses charge anything like 10K to master a CD. What does happen a lot though is that the label often add costs to a bill, and these are often excessive. I've seen an accountant's pro-forma to a band where we did the mastering and our charge was increased by about 600%. Or the label use their own in-house ME and charge a price that is considerably more than what an equivalent independent will charge. They do this because most people in a band don't know what the rates are for the work that they get billed for by the label. BTW - it's not just the bands who are on the receiving end. Many independent tracking/mixing and mastering studios have gone bust partly due to the practices of some of the big labels. They've lowered the prices they pay us considerably over the last 8 years or so and have changed the payment terms to be in their favor. 8 years ago we used to get about 3000 Dollars to master a CD, now it's under 1K. I'd assume that they still invoice the bands the same as they did 8 years ago - or even more. 8 years ago we used to get paid on account within 30 days. Now that has stretched to over 120. We do the work, present the bill and then don't get paid for 6 months. If you don't work to these terms then you just don't get the work. At the moment we have something in the region of 15,000 Euros owed to us by three major labels for work done stretching back over 4 months. If they pay before XMas we'll have turkey, if not it's going to be pizza . Seriously, this ruins cash flow and I know some studios who went bust whilst being owed money by some major labels. -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
Be friends on facebook with us here. We use professional, mastering grade hardware in our mastering studo. Our hardware includes: Cranesong Avocet II Monitor Controller, Dangerous Music Liasion Insert Hardware Router, ATC SCM Pro Monitors, Lavry Black DA11, Prism Orpheus ADC/DAC, Gyratec Gyraf XIV Parallel Passive Mastering EQ, Great River MAQ 2NV Mastering EQ, Kush Clariphonic Parallel EQ Shelf, Maselec MLA-2 Mastering Compressor, API 2500 Mastering Compressor, Eventide Eclipse Reverb/Echo. |
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