TuneCorner

iTunes Going DRM Free: What does it mean for you?

Jake Smith is a TuneCore customer support representative and editor of the TuneCore Newsletter

After 6 years, iTunes has announced that they will begin selling their entire catalog without DRM protection.  This raises a number of questions, and it is important to start discussing now what these changes could mean for all of us in the music industry.

DRM, or "Digital Rights Management", is proprietary code encoded in certain types of files to control where and how they can be used.  If you've ever purchased a song on iTunes before and tried to play it on a different computer, a message will come up saying that the computer is not authorized to play the file.  iTunes currently allows 5 computers to be authorized for any one iTunes account.  DRM protection reaches much further than just iTunes and digital music.  Movies, computer software, and video games often incorporate some types of digital rights protection.  For example, DRM stops (or attempts to stop) you from ripping DVD movies to you computer or by requiring you to enter a serial number before using a new program you've installed.

From the stand point of the music consumer, there is really no downside to iTunes removing DRM protection.  In addition to being able to move music more freely from computer to computer, music purchased in the iTunes store will no longer be limited to the iTunes library or iPods.  Files will be compatible with Windows Media Player, non-Apple based MP3 players, video game consoles and more.  From the label/artist stand point, the loss of DRM may seem good or bad depending on your personal philosophy.  Does it help your career in the long run by making it easier for fans to share, or is it simply less money coming to you for your hard work?

Realizing that the decision to drop DRM protection would be a controversial decision, and in an effort keep ahead of the rapidly growing Amazon store, iTunes announced they would sweeten the deal for labels by finally allowing labels to set price tiers for individual tracks.  We are waiting on iTunes to give us more specific information about this and we will make the details known as we receive them.

If you're looking for a more in depth look at these changes, I'd recommend this article from the staff of Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/article/138000/2009/01/drm_faq.html).  Some highlights include:

• iTunes DRM free files vs. Amazon MP3, which has always been DRM Free
• What happens to music purchased before the DRM change?
• Will the change affect TV Shows and Movies?

Reports say that this change will be taking place by June.  What do you think about this?  Was the DRM drop inevitable or is iTunes biting the hand that feeds it?  Let us know your thoughts.

Twitter fight! Twitter fight!

@zedshaw: @tunecoregary Holy crap man, write a blog post. Did you seriously message me that much today?

I recently had a long, occasionally sarcastic discussion on Twitter with Zed Shaw. Zed is a famously iconoclastic developer best known for creating the web server software Mongrel, that TuneCore and thousands of other websites use every day. He's a very, very smart guy, and lately he's been getting into music. He has some typically iconoclastic thoughts about how artists can sell their music directly, here, here and here.

This led to some spirited tweets between me (@tunecoregary) and @zedshaw. It got verbose, so he asked me to write a blog post. Voila. Here's a response to just a few points from the entries at the URLs above. Zed's right in several areas but way off in others.

What’s needed is a mechanism for a musician (or any artist) to put their music on their site, and then let a fan click a button to buy it. Wow, revolutionary right? A widget that plays some music, and then has a link to where you can buy the music. Gee, that sounds kinda hard, I wonder if I could do it.

We're doing that right now, except the links go to iTunes, where the music is already hosted, and they handle payment and download. That's got its plusses and minuses, everyone knows it. So maybe artists could go direct. Enormous questions about the specific mechanisms of payment (is it PayPal?), fulfillment (is it streams, downloads, partials, unlocks, what happens when a download/stream is interrupted?), copyright (there's incredible legal exposure here at all levels, who's responsible?) or quality issues/returns--those are questions merely at the selling end, what about the accounting end? But forget about all that and about the demands of artists and fans (who always want choices, choices) for a moment.

Direct sales are definitely possible, it's true. Artists have sold their CDs out of the trunks of cars at their shows for years. Selling direct off your own website is kind of like that. I expect most artists would still rather get into stores where more customers are. Since the Towers, Sam Goodys and Virgin Megastores of the world have collapsed or are on life support, those stores are now digital. It is true that they act as "walled gardens," where you search and browse only among music that has been hosted on those sites' digital shelves. Part of why we founded TuneCore was to stock the infinite shelf space of iTunes and Amazon so full of independents that it would lower those walls as much as possible. So far, that's working pretty well.

I would love for TuneCore widgets to offer direct sales to customers and allow artists to set their own pricing and completely bypass the stores such as iTunes. Unfortunately that is rife with a number of details around fulfillment and copyright that will take some time to work out. It's not as simple as an XSPF file and a few lines of Python.

As soon as there’s good search engines for music, and a good browser for music that does not honor walled garden we’ll see a massive change in the business. First to go will be these middle men...

If "middlemen" are not nimble enough to cope with the rapidly changing field, that is correct. If they truly are the "middlemen" that Zed believes us to be. If pushing files and pulling a cut of the cash was all they did, just maybe Zed might be right. However, if they provide a useful range of services and charge a fair price for it, they will survive. Further, someone who builds the search engine will become a new middleman (because of Google, SEO is a huge business) and whoever builds the browser software will probably do okay as well, in influence if not revenue (such as Firefox improving web standards compliance). And someone like TuneCore with a nice tidy place for artists to accumulate payments and host artists' assets and offer one-click or easy distribution to new venues will do just fine.

Zed also says this:

For whatever reason, Amazon caved to the labels, and in order to get the right to sell f---ing Britney Spears songs, Amazon probably agreed to cut out any potential competitors to the current business model.

That's not true. The sale of music online is rife with copyright issues, fraud and worse. This is the law, not the opinions of labels (granted, the labels had a lot of opinion on the writing of the law in the first place). TuneCore regularly pulls down albums that have been proven to contain uncleared samples or other stolen work. Most online stores have enough on their plate with customers. Stores aren't interested in dealing with hundreds of thousands of individual artists. They'd much prefer to let us do that. They love us, and we make their jobs easier. Why would they go direct and have to build that overhead of support and management? They'd have to charge more off the back end and the artist would make LESS money.

I'm paraphrasing, but Zed strongly implies that people like TC add little or nothing to the production chain and take revenue illegitimately, either up front or back end. That makes me sad. Zed apparently doesn't understand that a good distributor provides a useful service to artists, and he makes it clear he feels the sooner we can be cut out of the chain the better. As someone who has spent the last three years of his life helping artists earn money from their work, I have to respond. TuneCore provides label-like services without the traditional "sign here and give us your rights forever and the bulk of your earnings forever" handcuff model. TuneCore is most definitely NOT a label, or a "middleman." I built this company to be the good guys of the music business and I still believe strongly in that.

Another point: Zed may be right in that a cheaper competitor to TC might come along, even now there's some, but since when is "cheaper" the same as "better"? Eventually the digital music distribution space is going to be like web hosting - full of fly-by-night companies who offer cheaper and cheaper rates for no-frills service--because there's demand, and demand creates lots of different models. But then it's up to TuneCore to provide value for money. This is true of any business.

As for distribution channels and walled gardens: iTunes and Amazon MP3 are on the top of the heap right now, but that will not always be the case. TC will adapt to work with whatever new model comes along. I always conceived of TuneCore's distribution as agnostic, not dependent on iTunes or Amazon or eMusic or anyone. I'd love to seed torrents of artists' music to promote themselves, if thats what they want. We'd be happy to offer more streaming, or on demand CD printing, or direct sales via widget where the artist sets the price point. All that stuff is great, and we're working on as much as possible. But it has to be sensitive to a lot more than just the mechanics of moving the file, grabbing the cash and walking away. It's just not that simple, and the complexities are precisely where a PARTNER is just what's needed. If it's a fair partner, and a smart one, and a knowledgeable one, why not use them?

Here's to your success as a working musician.

Help! I Have 24 Hours to Save a Horrible Mix, Part II

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both Nashville and New York City. Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News. He can be reached at cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com.

Part 2

Too Late! I’ve Only Got 24 Hours To Fix My Horrible Mix

OK, so you didn’t have a chance to read the first part of this article before you made the mistake of promising your mix to someone in the music industry and, as it stands, the mix just isn’t going to cut it. What do you do? Well, there are a variety of options and, as with almost everything in life, it’s only a matter of money. After explaining a bit about why a mix may be horrible, I’m going to give you three financial scenarios and how you can repair your mix in each of them. By the way, no matter what the scenario, be clear with the engineer up front that you’re under a considerable time crunch and give them an exact deadline. This way, there can be no misunderstanding about when you need your mix.

Why Does My Mix Sound Horrible?!?

For the sake of this article, we’re going to limit ourselves to the mix itself as the culprit. Often, especially early in one’s recording career, the bigger issues of a mix go back to the actual recorded performances. Unless the players/singers involved have a decent amount of studio experience, their performances tend towards the tentative or worse. But as I said, we’re going to assume the performances are solid and it really is a mix issue. Mixes can sound bad for a variety of reasons and this article is not really the venue for a technical explanation so I’ll keep the following descriptions brief. If you’re a beginning sound engineer here are a few things to think about. With the instruments, it generally comes down to a lack of each instrument having its own place in a mix whether for reasons of volume, panning, EQ or compression. With vocals, the issue is usually clarity (level, EQ & compression) and effects (reverb, delay, etc.). When a mix sounds dull and unexciting, it’s generally because things are over-compressed. If you’re not a sound engineer and you’ve gotten your mix back from someone who is (or claimed to be) and you’re not happy, the above descriptions are a good place to start when describing your problems to your new mix engineer.

Scenario #1 – Money Is No Object

For obvious reasons, this is the best position to be in with a bad mix and very little time to fix it. There are some real miracle workers out there who can take a crummy mix and bring the whole thing to life in relatively short order. Also, even though these folks are busy, it’s likely that not every one of the projects they’re working on is urgent. Your best bet would be to come in, explain the urgency of your situation and bring the mix (and mix files) with you so the engineer in question can give it a look/listen on the spot. Without necessarily saying you’ve got all the money in the world to throw at this mix, simply say that you understand this is last minute and you need their best work right away. Ask them what their fee would be (they ought to be able to give you a very close estimate) and accept. This is not the time to haggle as you’re asking for a lot from someone who is probably busy enough to say “thanks but no thanks” if you start to negotiate. By the way, whether you have the money right now or not, it’s in your best interest to familiarize yourself with the best engineers/studios in your area. You might not need them now but some day you might. It’s generally free to go visit a studio and talk to the owner or engineer and get a sense of their capabilities and rates.

Scenario #2 – You’ve Got A Few Hundred Bucks

You’ve got a couple of options here. First, you might want to ask a top engineer if they know of anyone who’d be willing to work for less. Often, top engineers have assistants who do good work and would love a chance to work on something at a more reasonable rate. A second-and perhaps better-option is to consider the world of independent producer/engineers who are in every town especially the music towns of Nashville, New York and LA. These guys might not have the reputations of the big engineers but will still do excellent work at reasonable rates.

Scenario #3 – You’re Out of Money

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you’re kind of screwed. You can pass up whatever opportunity was 24 hours away and hope that when your finances are a bit more flush you can go in and repair what’s wrong. Or you can turn the mix in as is. In this scenario, I’d almost always opt for passing on the opportunity. In the music industry, it’s very easy to poison the well by turning in something that isn’t ready for prime time. It’s better to make up an excuse and pass than to turn in something half-baked.

However, there are a few other options. First, the same top engineer that has assistants might also have interns. These guys might get the use of the studio from 2am to 8am and would be willing to work for nothing to gain experience and your loyalty. It’s certainly worth asking the top engineer if there are any interns who’d like to do the mix. The downside, of course, is that you’ll be working with an intern and there’s no guarantee you’ll get something better than what you’ve already got. Then again, you might. Second, if you’re really creative, talented, and lucky as all hell, there may be another way. Let’s assume you’ve got a terrific song and an almost “sure thing” to get it placed. You can always offer an engineer a significant piece of the pie if/when the song gets placed. Let’s assume the engineer loves the song and understands that there’s real potential. In a best-case scenario, the song does generate income and you end up giving half or more to the engineer. Be aware that this could end up being much more money for the engineer than the original mix would have cost you had you paid directly. You’ll have to chalk it up to experience and look at the placement as more of a resume builder than an income generator. I feel the need to say that this scenario is extremely rare. Most talented mix engineers are making a living by being paid for their work and not by taking chances on songs that are brought to them by unknown clients at the last minute. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I’m a firm believer that if you want to earn income from your music, you have to treat it like a well-run business.

Your Best Bet

No matter which of the above scenarios you find yourself in, you’ll have sacrificed the one thing that music has to offer over most other businesses…fun. By adding a tight deadline, you’ve just introduced stress into the equation that, in most cases, could have been avoided. As I mentioned in the first part of this article, when it comes to mixing, your best bet is to be methodical, patient and sure you’ve got a mix you’re proud of before you start finding uses for it. After all, this is music we’re talking about and enjoying the process of making it is one of the best things a career in music has to offer.

Help! I Have 24 Hours to Save a Horrible Mix

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both Nashville and New York City. Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News. He can be reached at cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com.

Part I

Well, I suppose I’ve got your attention now at any rate. Given what an emotional medium music is to begin with, it’s not surprising to me that songwriters and artists (myself included at some point in the murky days of my early career) find themselves panicking when they’ve committed to something that requires a finished product before they have it. In the old days, this used to be situations like planning a CD release party/show before you had the finished, shrink-wrapped CD in your physical possession. These days, it’s more likely that you’ve committed to getting a finished mix to a film/TV music supervisor or radio station by a specific date and after playing your mix for a few trusted friends or fellow musicians, your worst fears are confirmed. The mix is horrible. As this article will come in two parts, I’m going to spend the part one of this article giving you ways to completely avoid this situation to begin with. Then, in part two, I’m going to give you ways to salvage a desperate situation based on three different budget scenarios.

How To Avoid the Above Situation in the First Place

I understand how exciting it can be when you’re nearing the end of a recording project. You can almost count the money you’re going to make from sales or royalties. Stop! You’ve spent years perfecting your craft. You’ve taken your time and learned to sing, write songs, play instruments and, in some cases, even to engineer your own material in your home studio. Why would you try and rush one of the most critical stages of the game? A mix is the culmination of all your effort and should be handled precisely and patiently. My sincere recommendation is that you never promise a song to anyone in the industry for any reason until you’re dead certain you have a finished mix you can submit with confidence. By avoiding situations where you’ve promised something you don’t have, you won’t run the risk of not delivering and appearing undependable or, worse yet, turning in something that’s sub par. Set yourself apart from the stereotype of the flaky musician by delivering what you say you’re going to when you say you will. It might help to remember that at a certain level in the music world talent is a given. You have a better chance of differentiating yourself by being a professional in all senses of the word.

The Mix Process

Whether you’re mixing the song yourself in your home studio or working with a professional mix engineer, take your time. Listen to the mix on the speakers in the studio, in your car, on a boom box and, Steve Jobs help us all, on those crappy $30 ear buds that come with every iPod. Of course your mix won’t sound as good on a boom box or through ear buds, but it should still sound clear. You should be able to hear the vocal and distinguish the individual instruments without, for example, the bass making the speakers rattle so much that nothing else is audible. Also, it’s been my experience that singers tend to want their own vocals too low in the mix because they’re either self-conscious or they think because they already know the words that the lyric is clear enough…or both. My recommendation is to bring in one or two friends (ideally not musicians) to listen to your mix and give you their honest opinion. Musicians, as a rule, tend to listen to the wrong things in a mix. The average listener will give you valuable feedback like “I can’t hear the guitar because the drums are too loud” or “I can’t hear what you’re singing.” Musicians tend to get into the nitty gritty and often can’t keep the big picture in perspective. The one exception would be if you’re a relatively new engineer and you’re uncertain about how your mix sounds. In this case it might be worth your while to talk to an experienced mix engineer and even hire them to give you detailed criticism about things you can do to improve your mix.

Working With A Mix Engineer

For non-engineers, the main thing to remember when giving your mix to a professional mix engineer is to let them mix. My recommendation would be for you to explain to the engineer that you’re going to leave the mix to them and you’d like them to let you know when your mix is ready to review. Then take the mix home, listen to it on various sound systems (as I mentioned above) and take detailed notes about what you’d like to go over with them when you see them again. For example, instead of saying that there are some words in the song that aren’t loud enough, you’d do better to say “in the second chorus, the word “aardvark” is a little too low.” It is infinitely easier for an engineer to go over a checklist of things to review in a mix than it is for you to have them stop playback every time you think you hear something. In other words, do your homework and use your studio time with the mix engineer to methodically tweak whatever needs tweaking.

When It’s Done, It’s Done

By following the approach I’ve mentioned above, you’ll avoid the gut-wrenching feeling that you’ve got an opportunity you’re going to miss or screw up if your mix isn’t ready in twenty-four hours. My final piece of advice for this section of the article is to remember that once you’ve signed off on a mix, it’s in your best interest to let it go. Like songs, mixes can be tweaked and tweaked ad infinitum but my hope for you is that you’ve got enough else on your plate to know when to say when. Do your best and move on. The more you go through the process, the easier the “letting go” will become.

Stay tuned for Part II of this article, coming soon.

Viral Marketing–What’s Really “Real” About It?

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both Nashville and New York City. Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News. He can be reached at cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com.

The Bad News

In my 15 years of making a full-time living in the music world, one thing has become more and more clear to me. It’s work. The romantic image of the starving artist being so incredibly talented that one day he or she gets “discovered” and becomes rich and famous is a dangerous myth. I say “dangerous” because the more you as an artist believe it, the less inclined you’ll be to do any work on your own behalf. The gritty reality is that if you don’t do the necessary (and daily) work promoting yourself and your music, it’s highly unlikely anything will ever happen.

The Good News

There has NEVER been a better time to spread the word about yourself and music. The internet, with its downloadable digital music files, social networking sites and countless other advances that we can’t even begin to imagine yet, has leveled the playing field in a way that will make the “work” you have to do infinitely more effective.

Gather Your Fans

The more you can identify and reach out to your fans the better off you’ll be. Whether it’s your friends on MySpace or Facebook or the email addresses you’ve been collecting at gigs or online, it’s these people who you need to be able to reach effectively to spread the word about what you’re doing. Treat your list of email addresses like the gold that it is. It’s these people who will not only consider buying your music when it comes out, but more importantly, will also help spread (“viral” get it?) the word about you and your music. Once you’ve got a network of fans that you can reach out to, you’ve dramatically increased your potential to spread the word about what you’re doing.

Be Creative

The fact that the playing field has been leveled and almost anyone can get their music out worldwide is both a blessing and a true challenge. Instead of fans knowing that the local Tower Records is where they should go to find new music, the internet, with its infinite musical venues, has become the new (and overwhelming) place to find what’s new and great. The more creative you are in your presentation, the more likely a fan of yours will be to forward a YouTube link with your video or any one of a thousand other ways you can create to present yourself and your music. Again, the plan is that by putting something out there that’s unique enough to rise above the typical internet fare, it will take on a life of its own and appeal not only your current fans but also to new fans in ways you’ve never imagined.

Stay Current

The outlets for music and ways of marketing online change and advance almost hourly. Taking time out of your day to be aware of the next MySpace, Facebook or Twitter will pay huge dividends going forward. It’s not enough to find one way of reaching people and stubbornly stick to it. If that were the case, bands would still be mailing postcards to let people know about their gigs. Did I just date myself?

Give It Away

Don’t be afraid to give something to get something. A free download of a song in exchange for an email address is the best deal out there these days. Make it worth someone’s while to give you his or her email address and you’ll be amazed at what happens. Let your music speak for itself. If fans like their free download, there’s a much higher likelihood they’ll come back and buy the rest. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to do this either. Take a peek at a simple and effective example by clicking here.

Make Sure Your Music Is Available

I can’t think of anything more depressing than the artist who comes up with an amazing vehicle to promote his or her music, watches it go “viral” and generate huge web traffic to their site only to have nothing readily available for sale. Don’t expect most people to wait around or check back with iTunes every few days until your music is up. Make sure that before you go about promoting your music, you’ve taken the necessary steps to insure that if and when people want to buy your music, they can do it easily. Companies like Tunecore make this essential step both simple and cost effective. Don’t wait around for people to start asking how they can get your music. By then, it’s too late. Do it first.

Trust Me, It’s Real

Be patient. Not every online marketing attempt you make will result in thousands of downloads and new fans. However, every effort you make to get the word out about your music (even if it’s fifteen minutes a day) becomes part of the bigger picture of reaching new fans. The more fans you have, the greater the potential for any one thing you do going viral and bringing in not only more fans but income. All of a sudden your “friends” on MySpace and Facebook just became a whole lot friendlier. Think of your work as a series of base hits that will get you ready for your shot at a home run. Good luck!

The Value of a Good Mix, Part II

The Instruments

Getting great instrument sounds in a mix is a combination of many factors. Finding space in the mix for each individual instrument is essential. This is often achieved through judicious use of EQ, compression, volume and panning. For example, the skill it takes to get great drum sounds, marry the kick drum to the bass while also giving the electric guitars rooms to breathe and sparkle is developed over time and repetition…a lot of repetition. When this is done properly, the instruments are exciting to listen to. Each has its place and role to play and when they come together, the song takes on a life of its own.

Vocals

A great mix engineer always makes the treatment and placement of the vocal a priority. Once the instrumental mix is generally where it needs to be, it’s time to make certain that the vocalist is running the show. A combination of EQ, compression, tuning (if necessary), effects and volume fader automation should all serve the ultimate goal of making it sound like the singer is in charge. There are several risks associated with improper vocal placement. If the final mix has too much vocal, then the instruments end up sounding small and weak. However, if the vocal is too soft in the mix, it loses its ability to communicate the emotion of the song. Every genre has its preferred vocal level. In general, pop music has the vocal more integrated into the instruments whereas country music (with its emphasis on the lyric) generally puts the vocal higher in the mix. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule but a good mix engineer will know the genre he or she is mixing in and do the right thing for the song.

On a related note, one of the best reasons to bring in an experienced mix engineer even if you’ve recorded the song yourself is a fresh, objective set of ears. It’s been my experience that if the singer mixes their own project, they tend to keep the vocals too low for a couple of reasons. One is that most singers tend to get uncomfortable with their vocals up in a mix. There are precious few singers I’ve ever worked with who genuinely love the sound of their own voices. By keeping the vocal low in the mix, the vocalist/engineer won’t have to their comfort zone but the mix suffers. The second reason has to do with the fact that the singer already knows the words and assumes that they’re hearing the words when, in fact, they may be too low for someone who doesn’t know the song to understand.

Mastering a Good Mix

Mastering a mixed recording is a separate skill altogether. While this isn’t an article about mastering, I’d recommend using a dedicated mastering engineer (not your mix engineer) when it comes time for this step. More to the point, the value of a good mix is that the mastering engineer will spend much less time (their hourly rates are generally higher than mix engineer rates) getting the finished master together. In other words, money you spend on a good mix will end up saving you money on a final mastered recording.

Doing It Yourself

If you’re still intent on doing your own mixing, consider hiring an expert to mix a song or two for you and then ask them for the session files back. Assuming you’re using the same recording software (i.e. ProTools, Nuendo, Logic), you’ll be able to examine every detail of how the mix was done and use the finished mix files as a kind of tutorial so you can ultimately learn to do them yourself.

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both Nashville and New York City. Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News. He can be reached at cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com.

The Value of a Good Mix, Part I

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both Nashville and New York City. Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News. He can be reached at cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com.

Once you’ve decided to up the ante and put your music online for the world to hear, it’s in your best interest to pay close attention to every step in the recording process. One of the most vital of these steps is the mix of your song. It’s not enough to have a great song. You need a great recording and a strong mix is an essential part of any great recording. The art of mixing (and make no mistake, it is an art) is not a skill everyone possesses. It’s well worth your while, even if you’ve recorded your tracks yourself in your home studio, to seek out an experienced mixing engineer. While there is no substitute for a dynamic, exciting musical performance, a good mix can enhance every aspect of that performance so that the final sonic result truly makes your song stand out. On the other hand, a poor mix can severely compromise even the best song and performance. Only you can write and sing your songs. That makes you an expert in those areas. However, unless you’re also an expert mix engineer, I’d highly recommend going to someone who is.

Budget

I get it. Everyone wants to save money. I do, too, but there are places to save and places to invest. In an effort to keep recording costs down, many musicians have purchased their own recording equipment. This is terrific and there’s never been a better time to buy affordable, high-quality gear. As long as you’re as passionate about learning the engineering process as you are about your music, you’ll do great. Owning your own recording equipment also takes a lot of the pressure off when it comes to experimenting in the studio. Finally, it allows you to record as many takes as necessary to get the performances you want without worrying about the clock. However, one way to make the absolute most of your recorded performance is to let an expert mix them. It’s amazing what a talented, experienced mix engineer can bring out of a mix that might otherwise get lost or obscured at the hands of a less able mixer.

Before You Mix

Before I cover in greater depth what makes up a good mix, let’s go back to performance for a moment. No matter how great the mix engineer may be there are some things you simply cannot fix in the mix. To be more specific, there is no way to “mix in” a great vocal or instrumental performance. What makes a performance great might surprise you. For example, sometimes it’s what you don’t play that counts the most. In my experience, the best studio musicians are the best listeners. What I mean by this is that great players base their instrumental performance on whatever else is going to be played in the song so that all the instruments work together as a whole to serve the song and NOT their individual egos. Playing too much is the hallmark of an amateur studio musician. Secondly, the timely use of dynamics (where to play louder/softer or with greater/less intensity) is essential to a mix that breathes and has shape to it. Simply moving up and down a volume fader won’t do the same thing. When it comes to singing, all the Auto-Tune and reverb in the world won’t give a vocal performance real sincerity and emotion. All this to say, make absolutely certain that the performances are exactly how you want them before you start the mix process.

Stay tuned for Part II, coming up next week!

Jeff Price's Article in the Huffington Post

Here is the full text of TuneCore President Jeff Price's article that appeared in the first week of January, 2009's Huffington Post. Read it and reap. --Peter

From MTV to YouTube: When the Net Pays Everyone But the Musician

In 1996, taped to the wall of my now defunct record label spinART Records’ 800 square-foot, four-ikea-desk-loaded-with-unsold-CD-and-vinyl office was a $1 check from MTV. I fought hard for that stupid check. MTV wanted to use a song called “Supermerica” by a band called Poole that I released. Usually TV shows pay good money for the use of a song, but not MTV-- they required labels to allow them to use the music for free in their TV shows when you submitted a music video to be considered for programming on their network. I still don’t know why they even bothered saying they would pay a dollar. It really pissed me off. I had fronted money and worked my heart out along with the band to promote, market, manufacture and release their album and along comes a multi-national billion dollar media corporation and demands to be able to use the music for a stinking dollar. I refused to do it. The music had value to me, it was the thing we sold and the thing the band made the majority of their money off of. I could not just give it up for free. But, Harry (lead singer of Poole) convinced me to let MTV have it in anticipation of the promotional value they might get out of it. The show aired, the song appeared in the background for about 30 seconds, the show ended, MTV made money from the advertisers and the song was not mentioned anywhere. This was the way it worked. The labels fed MTV free music and videos and in return hoped to get their videos aired which in turn would drive huge music sales. And MTV made a fortune off the advertising.

And this is more or less why Warner Music recently demanded that all its videos and music be removed from YouTube. Warner previously granted YouTube the legal rights to use its content and YouTube generated a lot of money from it via advertising. Now Warner wants to be paid more by YouTube. If the Google-owned YouTube does not comply, it opens itself up to potentially tens of millions of dollars in copyright infringement fines. Universal did this same thing successfully some time ago.

When media giants fight over music, you know it has to be valuable. Looking, listening and occasionally buying a “good” song drives revenue, tremendous web traffic and generates big advertising dollars. I can kind of understand Warner’s point, but as music sales drop and the multi-national, billion dollar media giants wrestle, lobby congress and sue each other for new income streams the musician seems to be getting lost in the shuffle, and that’s a huge mistake. Creating a new revenue sharing model that focuses on allowing artists to generate enough money to continue creating music would be a win for everyone. After all, it is the music that is fueling the entire machine.

The union of music and advertising goes back decades, but it seemed to reach a new level with the launch of MTV. MTV broadcast free “TV shows” from the labels in the form of music videos. These videos brought viewers allowing MTV to charge money to advertise on its network. In return for the free videos, the labels and artists received promotion. Artists became more famous which in turn allowed labels to make more money from music sales (there were other income streams as well like money from gigs, but the labels only participated in revenue that came from the sale or license of the music). This symbiotic relationship worked very well as long as all involved made their fair share of money.

However, after over two decades of a steady annual increase in music sales generating enough revenue to feed the record industry, music sales plummeted. At about the same time, advertising revenue from music went through the roof. Internet companies made money off music via venture capital investments, going public and getting acquired for a billion dollars. And this is the crux of the problem, music is being used for profit but not everyone is getting a piece of the pie.

Music sales plummeted with broadband proliferation and the mass adoption of the Internet, MP3s, compression technology, peer to peer file sharing, instant messaging of files, email attachments, torrents and other on-line distribution vehicles. The labels found themselves wondering why they should continue to provide their music and videos for free if the channels/sites they gave them to were reaping a disproportionate financial benefit. Labels would not have given MTV free music videos in the 80’s if MTV made money off the videos but the labels did not. (Imagine ABC getting the TV show “Lost” for free, then broadcasting it and keeping all the advertising revenue.)

Move ahead in time to the launch of the original peer-to-peer music file sharing software Napster allowing anyone to get any song at any time for free. Tens of millions of users provided Napster a huge “viewing audience” that it could reach via its “channel.” Unlike MTV, most labels and artists did not give Napster permission to use their music. The one area where value could have been created – music sales from discovery – was made irrelevant by allowing users to get the songs for free. To add insult to injury, despite Napster raising almost 100 million dollars and then being bought for 8 million the artists and labels were not paid anything (some would even suggest they lost money due to pirating).

The money that labels did make came from suing Napster and getting paid settlements for copyright infringement; the artists got nothing.

Over time social networking sites began to pop up and MTV moved on to showing its own TV shows (why not, they now had their own built in audience). Bands began to use these sites to get heard, discovered and to collect fans. Music lovers flocked to the sites, web traffic went up and the social networking sites began to charge advertisers for banner ads based on the “eyeballs” they were getting (for a website, any friend of the band is a friend of theirs). Once again it was the bands’ and labels’ content driving the audience, and once again someone else was making money off the music without an equitable inclusion of the labels and bands in the equation.

Which brings us back to Warner demanding that YouTube take down its content until it receives what it perceives to be its fair share of revenue. Following Google’s one billion dollar acquisition, YouTube is not yet profitable and suggests it cannot give up even more of its advertising revenue. Labels contend that this is really not their problem and need to be paid more for the use of their “products.” Unfortunately, advertisers are not paying the same sort of rates for online exposure as for TV and radio airtime, and there is not enough money to go around. And the artists, the ones who create and make the music that fuels it all, have yet to be directly included in the conversation.

As the “golden era” of MTV morphs into the world of MySpace and YouTube, a new model of advertising around music – ads appearing on artist’s WebPages or popping up on a streaming internet radio player– is not creating enough money to share. And no one is seriously discussing sharing it with the artists anyway. How then in this shifting landscape can they survive?

One possible piece of the puzzle may be the democratization of corporate sponsorship; instead of companies deciding which bands they choose to endorse or random ads appearing when music is played, let bands decide which corporations they want to work with. Bands can then tells their fans to click a link to land at a sponsor’s webpage where the fan gets a “free” song. The advertiser gets the web traffic and the artist gets their proportionate share of the advertising money for each free download. Going a step further, the artist has the ability to collect information about the fan (i.e. email address, age, zip code) thereby providing the opportunity for a targeted ad buy , i.e. 18 – 25 year old woman in the 02134 zip code. Or, taken another step further, as opposed to a random ad appearing on a streaming Internet radio player as a Pixies’ song is played, assume an ad appears for a product that the Pixies selected, i.e. The Pixies use Gibson Guitars or they love the movie Fight Club. Targeted demographic marketing allows advertising fees to go way up.

TuneCore is launching this model in January 2009 (full disclosure, I am CEO). This connection allowing artists and corporations to work with one another directly may prove to be one of the better ways to generate revenue in the new model. New companies such as TuneCore can then become facilitators providing the tools and information to the artists to collect fans, create music and provide access to opportunities such as corporate sponsorships. I by no means believe this is the magic bullet to the problem, but I do think it has the potential to be part of the solution. In 1981, video killed the radio star, here’s to hoping the Internet does not inadvertently kill the musician.

Guest Contributor Maya Halfon

Maya Halfon is a music supervisor at Michael Welsh Productions. She began at the fully independent electronic label, Quango, doing marketing and then pitching music in house to film, TV and advertising, as well as handling in house licensing before becoming a music supervisor; now she specializes in music for advertising. In addition to music selection, MWP also administers music, image, or film rights clearances, as well as producer deals or any other right that can come up when music and brands intersect. Michael Welsh, CEO of the company, has a background as a composer for film, television and advertising and worked as a music supervisor at the major studios. Michael Welsh Productions handled all music supervision and rights clearances for Gap brands international television campaigns including “Jump, Jive and Wail,” “West Side Story,” “Madonna and Missy,” and “Audrey’s Back.” Current MWP clients include Macy’s, Chico’s, Nike, Nokia, HSN and Chivas Regal. TuneCore is very pleased to have Maya Halfon contribute just one story of her life in this industry. --Peter

We Got You Covered

Coming from the other side of the desk, I find one of the best things about being a music supervisor is that I’m now in a position to help independent and even unsigned artists get their music exposed, and get them paid for it. Coming from the indie world, I also know that there is far too much to do and too few people to do it, or simply how easy it is to get swept away by the creative side of music, letting the logistic and legal side slip through the cracks. Usually, the first thing to go is the clearing of mechanical rights on covers, interpolations found in covers, or samples in songs. Often, songs have multiple writers and thus multiple publishers; to make matters even more complicated, some of them will be represented by Harry Fox (www.harryfoxagency.com) and some of them won’t, which means that a bit of extra legwork is needed, as well as reaching out to individual publishers. Many times you’ll have to go to the publishers individually--it varies on a case by case basis.

And there are problems that can arise even in seemingly straightforward covers: songs can contain interpolations (essentially, incorporations) of other songs, which musicians may not even be aware of (for example, one of the more popular versions of “Sing, Sing, Sing,” which we mention below, contained an interpolation of a song entitled “Christopher Columbus” by Leon Brown Barry and Andy Razaf).

Perhaps even more confusing (and most avoided) is the clearing of samples. There are several myths about samples, all of which are untrue, that tend to circulate in musician’s circles: that a sample less than a certain amount of time doesn’t have to be cleared, or if it’s less than a certain amount of bars, the artist is excused from clearance. None of this is true. A sample is a sample, and in addition to publishing rights, master rights need to be cleared with the appropriate label.

Though it is required by law to get mechanical licenses and the applicable master license cleared, the purpose of this article is to encourage you to clear these rights so as to avoid missing potential opportunities, rather than as a scare tactic outlining the legal ramifications (which are minimal). A few months ago, however we came across a very near miss that should act as a wake-up call to independent artists and what they put on their CDs.

One of our clients, Macy’s, is a big fan of using updated covers of well known songs that reflect their brand's image, and most recently, all of the spots were awarded to covers by unsigned independent artists. For their Veteran’s Day campaign, they asked for a cover of the Louis Prima original “Sing, Sing, Sing.” After listening to hundreds of versions, we sent Macy’s roughly twenty versions. The one they ultimately chose was a fun, modern reworking by a great unsigned band who we’ll call the “Cat’s Meow” (to protect the guilty party).

We went about requesting quotes, starting with the master--that was no problem, the band owns the recording. Then we went to the publishers...

“The who?” they publisher asked me quizzically when I followed up on their quote. “We don’t have any record of this master in our system.” As it turned out, the Cat’s Meow hadn’t gotten a mechanical license. Not only did the publisher not have any record of the master, but they refused to quote a master use fee until the mechanical rights had been cleared.

And I don’t blame the Cat’s Meow for neglecting this. Harry Fox is not an easy website to navigate, especially if you don’t have music industry experience. The lack of a mechanical license caused a hold up in the project that endangered Macy’s using the track.

The happy ending to this story is that the Cat’s Meow did indeed get their song into a Macy’s commercial. But the advertising world (and film and TV for that matter), is incredibly fast paced. Had the deadline been any earlier, the spot could easily have been awarded to someone else with their paperwork in order, which doubtlessly happens all the time.

So a word of warning: unsexy as it may be, paperwork is completely necessary in the music industry, despite seeming counterintuitive to anyone remotely artistic. In addition to missing potential opportunities (and the fact that it’s the law), there are several other reasons why getting your paperwork in place will work to your advantage:

• Some music-selling platforms are getting pressure from publishers to have mechanical licenses in place. As the music industry wanes, publishers will eventually require it to be a condition of these platforms to show evidence of licenses.
• Everyone wants the most exposure for their work. Be aware that the more exposure you get the more open you are to being caught by the publishers.

If it all seems daunting to you (which it can), be aware that you can always hire a clearance company like ourselves to assure that you have all licenses completed and your paperwork in order so that when an opportunity does arise, you are ready. The process can take up to four weeks, so it’s always a good idea to sort out mechanical rights long before you release your record or start pitching your music.

For more information, please feel free to contact me at info@michaelwelshprods.com or (626) 796- 7821. I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you...and Coming Up in 2009!

A THANK YOU

On January 25th, 2006, almost three years ago, TuneCore went live. Gary, Peter and I had a mission to change the music industry by allowing any artist to have worldwide distribution, receive all the money from the sale of their music while keeping all their rights. As we begin 2009, we want to give you a sincere and heartfelt thank you. Without you we could not have changed the world for the better.

SEE WHAT YOU DID!

In the last two years, TuneCore customers earned over 30 million dollars. In just one day, you release and distribute more music via TuneCore than any major record label does over the course of a year. In just three days more music is released and distributed than all of the major record labels combined over a year. YOU are now the music industry.

COMING UP IN 2009

With the new-year upon us, our focus is to provide even more information, access and distribution points while building and providing more tools and services that can be of use.

First up is the opportunity to get an endorsement deal from Ernie Ball, one the pre-eminent guitar and bass string manufacturing companies on the planet. Available for the first time ever in the music industry via TuneCore, any artists can obtain a top level Ernie Ball endorsement based strictly on how many songs are sold. Sell 50,000 songs and get discounted Ernie Ball guitar or bass strings; sell 100,000 songs and get FREE Ernie Ball guitar or bass strings, up to 18 packs a month. Just walk into any Guitar Center store to get them. Before the end of January, the first group of eligible artists will be notified.

Also before the end of January, expect the following to be live at TuneCore:

The first version of your own streaming player that has direct links to buy your music on iTunes. It can be placed on any webpage that accepts cut and paste HTML.

The opportunity to give away a song for free and be paid for each download by a sponsor.

In the next few months you can also expect a number of other new high-end features and services including a site re-design, music discovery tools, new digital stores, some very cool physical distribution opportunities and a few other surprises.

As always let us know what you want and what you are thinking in our forum.

Here’s to a great 2009! We can say we knew you when...