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A Special Article by
Costy L
WHILE WAITING FOR A MIRACLE
by Costy L
I've received Janet's newsletters for a few years now. Recently I noticed an avalanche-like growth in number of very general and desperate questions: "what am I to do ?", "how I get the record deal ?" or "how I get though ?" Do not get me wrong, those are certainly valid questions. Attempting to help these people out, I have put together a few recipes that I and my friends have found useful. Here I should say a magic phrase - everything below is not to be considered as a legal advice, it's just a few things that work for me.
In my experience, nowadays there are very few people in the industry left whom you can approach without having a ready-to-go master. This means a pro-quality, broadcast ready record. You should remember that your material will always compete with someone's who already has quality. In short - quality sells. The path from a freshly written song to the master goes through a recording process. Let's check out some numbers.
RECORDING.
One of the well-known producers, don't remember exactly who
was it (Geza X ?), said that recording is an illusion. I find it
an amazingly precise definition. It really is. If you learn the
tricks of this illusory process you can make a good record
and cut down its costs considerably. In other words - knowledge
is power.
Here are a few examples from my recent experience:
a) Home-studio production (no hired musicians).
These days a decent recording home-studio is quite affordable,
for 2 - 3 thousand dollars one can put together a good digital
multi-track with some necessary mixing equipment. More one learns
about it - better will be the record. Just keep in mind that a
lot of great records were produced with 4 or 8 analog track
machines. So, with an effort, one can manage to produce a good
quality master within $3000.
b) Home preproduction, pro-studio production (no
hired musicians).
One can use only a home-studio multi-track recorder for
preproduction work (no mixing equipment expenses). Then it is
dumped on the pro-studio multi-track, mixed and mastered there.
There's no fixed price for this, but one can count on
finding a good studio which will do the job for about $80 -
$100 per hour. You should add reel-tape renting costs - about $200,
4 tapes $50 each (60 min playtime). In this case a careful
planning of the mixing sessions would help a lot. At the
end, one can have a pro quality master for as much as $5000, and
the home-studio is still there for the next project.
c) Pro-studio production.
In this case the numbers above are still valid, except one may
want to own the tapes as well, which is about $150 - $180 per
unit. One thing I'm sure of - to have a well rehearsed
musicians helps to get both, high quality and low cost. Home
recording experience will definetely help too.
WHAT'S NEXT.
Unfortunately, to have a great master may not be enough. You can
send it here and there, but if a miracle doesn't happen, it will
end in nowhere (I was taking it for a good luck when I'd receive
a rejection letter, no kidding). But I don't think the situation
is as desperate as it seems. Why not to release yourself while
waiting for a miracle ? It's not something unthinkable, really.
a) Duplication.
There are a lot of small duplication companies out there which
offer very reasonably priced service. 1000 audio CD duplication
can be from $1300 and up, depending on the package. Usually it
includes simple CD-label, booklet and tray-card printing, glass
mastering, jewel cases, bar code and wrapping. Let's say, with
some artwork improvements an average could be $1500 - $1700.
At this point you have your own release.
b) Copyright.
This step is very straight forward. To obtain a copyright
certificate from U.S. Copyright Office is currently $30 per
entire album (collection of music compositions) and two copies of
your product (one copy if it's not released). For detailed
information and forms check out
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/
c) Distribution.
This is the toughest one, I think. Generally, the sales on
live gigs work well if the band is good. Also there are
local stores, small indie music chains and online sellers.
However, at this point the result depends on quality of the
music, it's production, live shows, contacts, advertisement
and geographic location as well. Be creative...
SOURCES:
There are some free sources - our friends musicians, web and
public libraries. Good libraries have back issues of "Home
Recording", "Recording", "Performing
Songwriter", "Guitar Player" and all kinds of
related books. Although the magazines are dominated by boring
adds, they still contain enormous amount of very useful
information - just go get it. There are $20 - $30 range
music directories such as "Musician's Atlas" with
compiled information about radio stations, publishers, printers,
clubs, web sources, etc. Not everything but enough to start
with.
BOTTOM LINE:
Music business is a combination of art, its production and its
delivery. Some people get lucky and some don't, the
same as in any other business. By definition, the miracles are
practically unpredictable, and the expectation of being "discovered"
may become a life-time delusion. Can be anything worse than that
? So, try to gain knowledge and experience about every of
the steps in making music, and go through them yourself.
Something may happen on the way. Good luck to all of you.
Costy L, Virginia, U.S.A. ;
Songwriter(BMI)/producer (day-job: Consultant for NASA, Ph.D.)
Costy_L@yahoo.com
Albums:
"The Three Ravens" (SIAE, Italy, 1996, not
available);
"Dirty Sky" (Costy L, 2001, available on Amazon.com);
Current project: "The Iron Mask", planned for
release March 2002.
Please note Costy's addendum: The numbers for
studio time, equipment and replication, are typical Virginia
numbers. Somewhere it can be cheaper, but other places, more
expensive. And he also suggests: I've run into an
article on web "Problem with Music" by Steve Albini
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
I think, it's an interesting and well written one, although there
are some f-words here and there. If you run my article, you can
give the link to Albini's one, they'd be very complimentary.
*** Thanks, Costy
Janet
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