“Everyone knows digital music distribution is a way to cut out the middlemen,” says Mike D, who’s both a musician and a fan.
“You don’t need to have a record company contract to disseminate music to fans, thanks to mp3s and the internet.
“But the other end of this isn’t really discussed much — the production end.”
He goes on >>>
To produce decent sounding songs suitable for radio play it used to be musicians had to go to a recording studio, which wasn’t cheap. That, in addition to distribution, gave the recording industry a stranglehold on musicians.
An essential part of any record deal was an advance — a ‘loan’ to the musicians to pay for the studio time.
It was a gamble for the record companies because a band who’s album didn’t sell couldn’t afford to pay back the advance. But considering the money recording companies have brought in throughout the years it’s worked well for them.
Home studios became available for musicians in the form of four-track cassette recorders by Fostex and TASCAM. The quality wasn’t very good — so musicians still
needed to go to a recording studio if they wanted a high quality recording.
Fast forward to 2009, and now you have high quality, affordable digital multi-track recorders, as well as software you can run on your computer to turn it into a multitrack recording machine.
A home recording studio capable of producing professional sounding recordings has now become affordable. For less than it would cost to go into a professional studio musicians can now buy their own gear.
“What this means,” mike adds, is “not only don’t musicians need the recording industry for distribution, unless they require some really fancy (and expensive) sound effects, they don’t need them for music production either.”
October 25th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
So, what use are the recording industrys these days?
Advertising / promoting artists? Events and gigs? Merchandise?
Our artists still need people behind the scenes to do these things – most of which are still money earners. Perhaps we ought to take a look at the jobs that need to be done to support the artists and see how they in turn earn money.
October 25th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
“Our artists still need people behind the scenes to do these things – most of which are still money earners.”
I have to wonder how much cheaper it would be for an artist to strike an arrangement with “non-label” sources of the supporting work. Surely, the labels’ services are astronomically more expensive?
October 25th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
@rabbit80:
Promo on a massive scale is still something beyond the means of most DIY artists, it’s the one thing the labels can do for an artist IF they want to. From what I’ve read, labels can be very fickle about who they promote, if the excecs don’t like a bands new album they can withhold promotion and have it die on the vine. Ask Fiona apple about this. If they are feeling really nasty, they will hold a band to it’s contract, so they are stuck with a record company that refuses to promote them, and can’t sign with another label even if the new label wants them and would promote them. Bands stuck in this situation would be better off with NO recording contract at all.
I think there are a lot of promotional agencies out there that could do as good, or better a job promoting a band than the labels do, but the average DIY band can’t afford them. Sad to say as far as the promotion angle goes I don’t have a solution.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:51 am
@ Monkey D. Luffy:
And then along came the net …
Cheers!
October 26th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
@Jon:
True, but in order to be used effectively promo on the web still takes a skill set many musicians lack.(had some friends, these guys were great musicians but HORRIBLE at the promo end of things). I think it’s a great start for small bands, but it’s always going to be hard for a DIY band to do the kind of promotion you need to fill a stadium. I’m not in any way implying the record companies are necessary because of this, as I said before there are professional ad agencies that are great at promo, I just don’t know how a DIY band could reach an agreement with them.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
@Monkey D. Luffy:
I think it can be done and I’ll try and come up with some ideas — unless anyone else has been there, done that (which I haven’t
)
Cheers!