Why Music should be for the love..

[legend4ry]

I just read that thread on the record label offering a 360 and I am going to share some of MY experiences when it comes to signing tracks, working with labels and such.


(I really don't care about naming names, as I feel like unprofessional people deserve to be "called out")

Well, I started writing dubstep in around 05... By 07 I got offered a record deal by the Label "Insect Mind" they had a amazing roster of artists including Cyrus, Hatcha, DFRNT, The Widdler.. So I was naive and was like "YES!" signed the contract and sent them wavs and the masters came back... They was all compressed to crap and sounded awful and they tried to tell me money was spent on these masters... So anyway, the release goes out and from what I know for sure, at least 40 people bought it from friends/family to support my first ever release, I only had to make 24$ to start getting paid so, I should of at least of gotten a bit of pocket change. I am still waiting to get paid, the labels disappeared and not one soul was paid who I contacted about it.

So that got me a bit sceptical about labels and about making my music into a business, I released a free EP on 20/twelve which has done more publicity for me than any commercial label have done so far..I get contacted by labels on the regular who want to sign my music and they're mostly dodge and unprofessional. Their contracts are flawed, also.

As soon as you put a price tag onto your music, unless its handled by people who know what they're doing you're doing more bad than good for 1) Your music. 2) Your credibility. A shit label can destroy an artists clout over night or never give the artists the break it deserves.

So, my advice to you lot, spesh those looking to get tracks out there... Hold your music close and make sure either, labels come to you or you contact labels who have credibility and you know from your production network that they're a good label. If you're thinking you need to be signed to get your name out there, you're wrong!

Do free releases. (contact some net-labels!)
Get some DJs on board to support you, don't be afraid to send tracks to DJs, ever!
Perfect your craft before you start making giant leaps to get shit signed, let a track sit for 6 months, listen back to it, still love it? Okay, try and get it signed!

Hope this gives some people a little bit of knowledge that labels and releases are not always good.

[djake]

[abZ]

Good advice. I may be returning to the underground here very soon. I'll get the stuff I want released mastered and then give it out for free. Only way to be sure no one is stealing your music

[legend4ry]

I also forgot to mention one of the most fundamental aspects of signing tracks...

Now, labels have to come from somewhere, of course and if you're just starting out unless you've made the new Midnight Request Line, Tempa isn't going to be knocking on your door but one thing to keep in mind is that what will YOU get out of signing a track to a label.

Google the labels name, is there a lot of hype about them? You can do insanely extensive google searches these days with blogs, twitter and forum searches. Is there a buzz about them?

Are the tracks already out on the label getting air play? If you sign a label and they don't have a network of DJs playing whatever the label signs then lets be honest, no ones going to hear it apart from through spamming forums, buying advertisement on websites (which will probably come out of your allocated budget for your release) and of course, word of mouth.

Are they doing anything you can't do yourself? If you don't want to push your music as intensively as possible then why are you signing tracks?

[collective]

I decided to go free with my label a couple years ago, publicity went up quite a lot. I fully support the free movement, I also support limited runs of physical mediums.

[Sharmaji]

Are they doing anything you can't do yourself? If you don't want to push your music as intensively as possible then why are you signing tracks?

excellently stated, though i don't necesarrily think this is about doing it for the love of it. It's about working smart: if you as an artist aren't pushing your tracks, why should a label do the heavy lifting for you?

[deadly_habit]

fabric is the only company i've ever seen a dime from regarding my music, well besides my own label
shift was/is a nightmare to deal with, first sign something is wrong, getting defensive when i ask for sales figures of vinyl, 2nd sign dodges emails, aim, and phone calls, yet i continue to receive label promo emails so obviously msgs are being read
finally flash forward to a few months ago i'll say finally looks like they have a system up for accounting, problem is it's only for like a couple months of this year when the brunt of the sales are when it released which would have been last year
ask for accounting from last year, get snarky email back like this said it's a new system last year is not accounted for besides it sold so bad i could do one up quick
have yet to see any proper accounting or professionalism
have yet to see a penny
karma's a bitch
i think rob (audiowright) who's on the flip saw all of 5$ if recall correctly

cue me back to self releasing and not dealing with jackasses

[jsills]

seriously, this thread makes me feel quite a bit better about not having a proper release or whatever. getting a release for me isnt about money, its like validation that im not just whoring myself to anyone on the internet who will listen....thats exactly what the label is supposed to do

[cloak and dagger]

Man, I have had some terrible experiences with labels, luckily I realized it quickly enough to get out while I could.

I'm not really into badmouthing or anything (at least not today), but I will say that, at least in drum & bass, on a label-to-artist level, the major labels aren't any more professional than the smaller ones from my experience.

[ninjadog]

If your in it for the money why would you be writing dubstep instead of top 40 and club type shit anyway?

[cloak and dagger]

If your in it for the money why would you be writing dubstep instead of top 40 and club type shit anyway?

love and money aren't the only two reasons people write music or get involved in a music scene

[narcissus]

thank you for this advice legendary.. already knew the last bits i think but your story is useful.

i feel most of the time with music, it'll end up setting you back in some way, very possibly financially.. so if you're not doing it for love, you're really not doing yourself any favors..

[legend4ry]

If your in it for the money why would you be writing dubstep instead of top 40 and club type shit anyway?

love and money aren't the only two reasons people write music or get involved in a music scene

Agreed! By "for the love" I just meant, for the creative outlet and the form of expression anyway! (but that was too long to put as the thread title )

[jaydot]

I would be stoked to sign to any label, even a small time net label, and that's where people like me have to watch out because I am admittedly naive when it comes to signing etc... and this is where the labels make their money.
Threads like these are good because they educate the uneducated.

[ninjadog]

If your in it for the money why would you be writing dubstep instead of top 40 and club type shit anyway?

love and money aren't the only two reasons people write music or get involved in a music scene

Agreed! By "for the love" I just meant, for the creative outlet and the form of expression anyway! (but that was too long to put as the thread title )

The third reason is girls.

I kid.
When your in it for the love it shows, but it also shows when you change your style to appeal to more people to make more money weather it be label pressure or your own decision. I guess people seem to think it's all gravey once your signed.
Fuck I don't even know what I'm talking about, I make music for a creative outlet, silence is my canvas. If I could make money to pay the rent off of it that would be sweet. But If I'm doing it because it's my job I know the quality of my tunes would go down or I would cookie cutter some tracks to meet a quota.

I couldn't even imagine starting a label to fuck some artists up the ass. But obviously douche bags like that are around.
I think I had some sort of point when I started typing this shit but now it eludes me.

[pete_bubonic]

Bad experiences with labels are rife especially when you have a scene where the economics are small scale and business is run by creatives.

When I first was offered a release on Inperspective's dubstep sister label Inprint, I was over the moon. Inperspective was a label I really looked upto and attended all the nights (trekking to LDN for them from Bristol each time). Just over a year and a half later the label owner was still saying it was coming out (we had the tp for about a year by this point), regardless of there being no promo and no physical product produced. It was massively long, I ended up falling out massively with the guy who runs it, who I really looked up to. It was frustrating, disappointing and a waste of everyone's time and money.

THIS SAID. There's quite a few posts on this thread including Legendary's imply that labels, especially the small independents, are out to sell and run. I want to set this right. The problem is, it's far too easy to claim you're a label nowdays. 30 sales on Beatport doesn't cut it for me. No matter how small you think you are, you can do better than this yourself and you don't have to sell anything. There's no money in releasing records now, the money you make from it is more a bonus than anything else. The money you do make is from the gigs and the hopeful licensing and syncing deal you get off the back of a decent label pushing your stuff.

We pay everyone an advance for our releases, so straight away you have some money. Because of the extra costs we incur for the pretty artwork and free mp3s, we have a rather high break even point for vinyl. On an average release we will make this with a little room to breathe. So the money has to come from digital sales if at all. What we do actively do is once we have had a commitment from an artist, we will then start including them in all our promo. Might be online, might be printed, might be in the actual nights we host ourselves (11 Tigers, TRG, Hyetal and Coleco, Soul Motive Party in Brussels next week if you're interested). but you would be able to deduce this from going over our website, you can see the blog posts about nights our artists have played, the reviews in printed and online media, the sections dedicated to the artists and the fact we have our own shop setup.

That's not to say everyone we worked with is happy. We have faced crippling delays and legal action with Headhunter / Geiom's release resulting in that release never being sold digitally. Which fucks me and no doubt fucks Tony and Kamal off. We're lucky in that the release was more them helping us than us helping them. Bless both those guys as they're gs.

I guess the bottom line as always is research, if you think you're sat on a couple of absolute cracking tunes and want to actively raise your profile as an artist, then a decent small/medium independent is the way forward. But you gotta research, what are their previous releases? who have they worked with? have you spoken to the label artists? are they compatible with you vibes wise? are they actively promoting and making things happen for their artists? There's lots of shitty net labels out there will will be more damaging than helpful. Don't be stuck with one of them.

If you have a surplus of time, if you have the dedication, the technical skills (or someone with them) and a keen ability to network, then starting your own label is a definite feasibility. But again, what are your reasons for doing this? Raise your own profile, push other artists, make some money? Because any of these take a lot of time and effort. There's only one thing worse with being signed to shitty tiny net label and that's becoming one.

imo.

[pete_bubonic]

Oh and being in it for the love and wanting to get paid are not mutually exclusive.

[legend4ry]

Its nice to see one of the most forward thinking and highest quality labels coming forth and telling it how their experiences have been. Out to Soul Motive! Coleco <3!

[paravrais]

Oh and being in it for the love and wanting to get paid are not mutually exclusive.

That's exactly what I was gonna say.

For me getting signed is more about getting my name out there and earning respect than getting money from sales. It's much easier to get DJ slots if you can say you have X releases on X labels and it's damn hard to get a slot at a good night round here.

Btw, slightly off topic but how long after sending to a label and hearing nothing back should you wait before contacting another label about the same tunes? I recently finished the first song I've done that I feel really deserves to be signed and I don't wanna let it die just because the first label I sent it to haven't got back to me..

[cloak and dagger]

Oh and being in it for the love and wanting to get paid are not mutually exclusive.

That's exactly what I was gonna say.

For me getting signed is more about getting my name out there and earning respect than getting money from sales. It's much easier to get DJ slots if you can say you have X releases on X labels and it's damn hard to get a slot at a good night round here.

Btw, slightly off topic but how long after sending to a label and hearing nothing back should you wait before contacting another label about the same tunes? I recently finished the first song I've done that I feel really deserves to be signed and I don't wanna let it die just because the first label I sent it to haven't got back to me..

Don't wait for a response. Send it to labels, if they want to sign it, they'll contact you.