Curious about the music industry? Find out stuff.
- Thread starter BonsaiK
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Nope, that was perfect :3BonsaiK said:
My friend suggested I play solo at a restaurant or something local around here to get involved
is this a good idea?
Is there any advice you could give for solo performances as in, could I get away with just strumming and singing or would i need to be more versatile than that to show off my skills?
I'm not expecting any money from this...
Forget playing in restaurants for free where you're basically an annoyance and an obstruction to dinner conversation, the best way to tentatively get started as a solo singer/player when you're a little nervous about the whole thing is busking (for money) and open mic nights (for stage experience). You'll make contacts at the latter and that can lead to proper gigs down the track if you want to go there. Be extra-mindful that "showing off your skills" and "being an entertaining performer that people will actually want to listen to" are often two very, very different things.Shivarage said:
This!!BonsaiK said:
As I learnt not too long ago, you can be bad at your instrument, but still be entertaining if you try hard enough
Different cities have different ways in which they issue busking licences but generally it's worth it and you will make your money back on the license in a pretty short timeframe. I had some of my guitar students go out and busk, and they ended up earning more per hour than me! Busking is also good for practicing vocal projection if you're a singer. You may wish to stand with your back against a highly reflective surface to help matters.Shivarage said:ah, thank youBonsaiK said:
and no worries, think singing and strumming will do in that case with no self-indulgence
I take it that lafango.com isnt a good site to upload music? what site do you recommend?
There's nothing wrong with getting technical if that's what you do, but entertainment should be #1 priority so if you're that kind of player be entertaining first and technical second if you know what I mean.
It really doesn't matter that much where you upload music, but what you might want to ask yourself is why you're uploading it. If it's to share with some friends then use whatever site you want. If it's the equivalent of an audio business card for you to get shows, then MySpace is still the best tool for that out there, although you should get on Facebook too for the networking it offers.
Sorry if these questions has been asked before. I would like to make a recording studio in the future , and I was wondering what equipment I should buy first? , and also , what would you consider the best program to make beats?
By "reflective" I mean "reflective of sound". If you're busking you'll get a better sound with your back up against a wall or an alcove of some kind. High sound frequencies will bounce off a flat surface made of a hard material (such as a wall), thereby projecting your sound outward, ideally into the passers by. Something completely flat such as glass works better than brick which has some undulations that dissipate the sound a bit more.Shivarage said:"You may wish to stand with your back against a highly reflective surface to help matters." what does that do?BonsaiK said:
My voice suits acoustic stumming more
I don't need to use my real name, do I?
Use your real name for what? You might need it to get the busking license (otherwise if someone checks your ID there will be issues) but apart from that, no. I mean, look how many aliases there are in music already.
Not sure if the order of things you buy is that important, but I'd say when you are making a recording studio the one area you can't skimp on is microphones. Almost everything else can be done on the cheap with a little innovation, but microphones can not be done on the cheap. How big is this studio, what do you plan to record in it (what size groups, what style of music) and is it just going to be you and friends in there or are you going to be hiring out your services as a studio engineer? All this will make a big difference in what you might need to buy.RandyNoKachi said:
If you want to make beats just get one of those free tracker programs and make beats with that. I don't know what the "best" program is and I don't think it matters because the quality of the beats is determined by the quality of the sound samples you're using and how much brains and innate musical sense you're using when you're putting it together, it's got nothing to do with which program is actually doing the constructing. Just get a tracker that can cope with at least 8 layers of sound and there you go, there's heaps of them out there, Fruityloops works well and a friend of mine got an international record deal using stuff he created on that program, but I'm sure there are other programs which are more or less the same.
No problem. I haven't been very specific in my reply, but if you look back to the first few pages of this thread you'll find quite a bit of technical information about things like microphones to use, recording gear and so forth. Feel free to hit me up with more questions if you have them after you've read all that stuff.RandyNoKachi said:thanks for the reply
Wherever there are the most pedestrians, that's where you want to be. Other buskers will be there, but they move around and so will you. It's usually part of a busking license that you can't be in the same spot all day. Just try to keep a polite distance so both you and them can be heard independently of each other and you should be fine.Shivarage said:ah good ideaBonsaiK said:
So if you're a session musician, and you play on aprox 100 albums, how long after will the royalites keep coming in? Will they just keep coming in as long as the albums sell?
Thank youBonsaiK said:Wherever there are the most pedestrians, that's where you want to be. Other buskers will be there, but they move around and so will you. It's usually part of a busking license that you can't be in the same spot all day. Just try to keep a polite distance so both you and them can be heard independently of each other and you should be fine.Shivarage said:ah good ideaBonsaiK said:
I can't think of any more questions so it's just a matter of putting the plan into action \o/
Assuming we did live in a magical fairy-land where session musicians actually got paid royalty rates for albums at all then the answer to your question would be "yes".Ham_authority95 said:
To be honest, session musicians usually don't play on albums, but when they do, if they're getting paid at all they usually do it for a flat fee or an hourly rate, rather than a royalty rate. Most session work doesn't involve you writing the actual material itself and therefore they don't attract royalties. Given how few popular albums become wildly successful, a session musician is far better off accepting a flat fee upfront anyway than trying to negotiate some kind of royalty percentage based on projected album sales. Unless you're highly famous and sought-after, such a negotiation would probably have your ass out the door and them hiring someone else pretty quicksmart.
Session musicians get most of their work not on the new Radiohead album, but in the unglamorous field of TV commercials and jingles. Someone's got to play and sing all that stuff that makes you buy soft drink or whatever. Background stuff for TV series is something session musos also do, and occasionally a session player might get to work on a movie soundtrack or something (statistically it's more likely to be an adult movie soundtrack than any other, session players typically do this type of work under false names). In all cases you're pretty much being told to play what someone else tells you to, so it's not exactly very creatively satisfying work, but what it does do is pay the bills. Good session players are hard to find so it tends to be the same group of guys getting used on everything all the time, which makes it a nearly-impossible field to break into, but if you can get into it, it's steady work in an industry notorious for not having a lot of steady work.
Do:Squarez said:
* put your best song first. Whoever listens to it will start at track 1. Make sure this song is good and reasonably representative of your project/group as a whole.
Don't:
* have a lengthy intro to your first song, or some other wank. If it doesn't jump out at the listener with something immediate and catchy in the first 10 seconds, forget it. It's a bad choice for a first song because the person listening to it may not even listen past the first bit. This even applies to genres like prog rock which are notorious for wank. Save the two-minute atmosphere-building acoustic intros for when you actually get that record deal. If you best song happens to be the one with the big intro, then put your second-best song first - or just use your better song and chop the intro.
Don't:
* bother putting more than four songs on your demo. Less it better. One is perfect, up to three if you feel the need to show different sides of your music.
Do:
* be good at what you're doing. Make sure whatever you're sending out is the best quality performance you're reasonably capable of.
Don't:
* be too fussy about audio quality. It's a demo, meaning demonstration. You'll be amazed how forgiving some places are about audio fidelity. As long as everything is clear and can be heard, and the performances are good, that will do.
Do:
* include a biography. I want to know shit about your group, like where you come from, who is in it, if anyone in the band has any history worth noting, and what I can expect the music to sound like. A picture is also considerate, assuming you're photogenic enough to not crack the camera lens, but make the picture part of the piece of paper, don't attach separate pictures.
Don't:
* include a fucking essay. I have a rule in my office - if office correspondence of any kind doesn't fit onto one side of one A4 piece of paper, it goes straight in recycling. Also don't fill your bio with art-wank, make it real. Humour is good, wankery is not.
Do:
* write a personal note to the person you're sending it to, thanking them, and include it with your CD and bio. This happens rarely and it always puts me in a good mood when I get a nice note. Putting the person who is potentially helping your career in a good mood is a good situation for you. Needless to say, brevity is good - the recipient's name at the top, two or three sentences and your signature at the bottom is about right.
Do:
* ring up the place you're sending it to beforehand and find out who in there you should attention it to, and let them know that your product is on its way and when they could be likely to receive it.
Don't:
* harass them for airplay/a record deal/whatever. They know why you're sending it, so don't be a pest, just put your best foot forward and let them work out whether it's something that they want. Rest assured that you can't "talk them into" liking it, they'll either like it or they won't, for whatever reason.
Do:
* ask about formats - some places prefer MP3s, some prefer CDs, some prefer vinyl, and some would just rather you upload your songs somewhere and send them a link.
Don't:
* use some bullshit format, like cassette, USB sticks or whatever in order to be unique and get attention, unless you're specifically asked to provide songs in this format. It'll get attention alright, but it will be the wrong sort. I've still got a USB stick that a band sent to me once, I deleted their shitty songs off it and now I just use it as my office USB stick. Thanks, band, whoever you were, I forget now.
Don't:
* (in the case of a radio station) get friends and relatives to ring up and request your own music! Or even worse, ring up the radio station pretending to be a punter and request it yourself! DJs are sly to this because it happens all the time, my radio station keeps a permanent list of whatever bands are currently ringing up requesting their own shit all the time so we know exactly how much contempt to give anybody who calls.
Do:
* use packaging that stands out. Standing out is important. Also, make the spine legible!
Don't:
* use packaging that makes your product difficult to file on a shelf.
Don't:
* forget to put on it the names of the songs and most importantly, your contact details! Track times are also considerate, DJs in particular like this.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. There may be one or two other points which will occur to me later.