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So You Want To Be A Star
Part 3: The 500 Hats of Madam Musician
Let's be honest. We had absolutely no money. I had maybe enough to press one thousand CDs and do some minimal marketing (around $3000). Lucky for us, one of the band members owned a bedroom studio with some sophisticated equipment, and is normally a producer and engineer. And here I broke my own rule, and we didn't have a written agreement with our producer/engineer, partly at his request, and this caused some problems later on. This also has to do with the fact that we are all friends, too, and at the time, a vague verbal agreement seemed adequate. In all likelihood, if he had told me how much it was going to cost to record, the project would have stalled right then and there.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I will be the first to admit that we broke a rule when we recorded, and that was because of the fact that one of us owned the recording studio. We did do some writing in the studio. We finished the lyrics, melody and general structure of the song, but we went into the studio cold and with no or minimal rehearsal before we started laying down tracks. So we weren't as efficient with our studio time as we could have been. And so I declare
Music Biz Rule Number 3: PRACTICE! You should be able to play all your material in your sleep!
I had been in the studio before, recording demos. Demos for bands I was in so we could get gigs and demos as a songwriter to try to sell the songs (or get the fabled record contract). The most I ever did was 4 songs, and I was a neophyte and let the engineer produce. I told him what sound I wanted and he did it or something close, or if he had an idea, I would let him go with it, and it turned out very nicely, even if I didn't hear it that way when I had written the song.
This time the engineer was in the band, and was a co-writer, and a co-producer. Almost ten years had gone by since my last studio experience, and I had some definite ideas of what I wanted on the album. I took a page from Hollywood: since it was my cold, hard cash that was financing this project, I became the Executive Producer, which meant that I was ultimately responsible for the entire project. This included scheduling, and attending every recording session, even if I wasn't playing or singing that night.
There are many jobs that need to be done when your band is recording an album. Someone has to make sure all these little details are covered Since I was the Executive Producer, and no one else was stepping up to the plate, all these things fell to me:
Scheduling of recording sessions and musicians. This meant booking time in the studio and making sure that the musicians were available to play and that they knew their parts. Of course in reality, this didn't work as smoothly as it sounds. I decided that having "guest guitarists" play lead guitar on different tracks would be a cool thing. One of them lived 2000 miles away. It was an interesting experience finding a studio over the phone and coordinating everything down to sending a rough mix of the rhythm tracks on ADAT overnight mail. And of course, my out of state friend's life decided to get completely out of control just then, and she couldn't record the tracks.
Provide a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere for the performers. If you are freaking out or stressed, and your players know it, they are going to be nervous too and you're not going to get the best out of them. Know when to get out of the way, or have a trusted friend gently remind you. You can come back in the studio and hear what's been done later after you've calmed down.
Attending every recording session to make sure the tracks are being done properly. Even if you aren't playing in that session. I do admit that I was unable to do this, and none of the other band members were comfortable enough to make decisions. Even when I wasn't there in person, I was there on the phone. I had to decide things like whether to use tracks recorded in less than optimal conditions, or wait two weeks until that player was available. And sometimes the decisions are hard. Do you let the release date of the album slide out one month? Two months? Will that make you miss the holiday buying season? Or do you go with what you've got and get something out?
Attending the mixdown. If the final sound of your album matters to you, be there for the mix. The mix can make or break a song. Lots of problems with recording can be fixed in the mix, and many engineers will tell you that, especially if you are not happy with a recording you just made. If you've got the time and the stamina however, do a retake. The cleaner your original tracks are, the better the final product will be. There are limits to what you really can fix in the mix.
And please, please, make sure you have your tracks put on some kind of stable media (like tape). A hard disk is only good until it crashes. And it will crash at some point. Back up your data, or be prepared to start all over again. If your studio uses hard disk recording instead of tape, make sure that all your files are backed up to another media. Things to request include backing up to a different physical hard drive (not another partition on the same disk!), CD-ROM, digital audio tape, or analog tape. Make sure it's in your contract with your engineer. Anyone who has any length of experience with computers knows that hard disk storage is not permanent. It's a matter of time before the hard drive becomes damaged in some way. Yes, you can get lucky and get 5 or even 10 years out of a hard drive, but play pessimist, please. Assume that the disk will crash right after you've done a rough mix, and that all your tracks will be gone. It's been known to happen. So here is
Computer rule number 1: MAKE BACKUPS!
And while you are recording and doing all of that stuff, don't forget about packaging. The big companies have staff that takes care of all of this for you, and many CD manufacturers also have staff that can handle these jobs as well, and for pretty reasonable fees. However, being the masochist that I am, I took on all of this stuff as well.
Cover concept and execution. This is what a potential buyer will see and it will factor into whether they purchase your CD or not, especially if they haven't heard of you or heard the songs on the album. The graphics and text should relate in some way to your music. Both music and art evoke emotional reactions from people. The emotions should be consistent (for instance, you probably won't see a fuzzy kitten in a basket of yarn on a thrash band's CD cover). You want your listeners to enjoy the music, and believe that their money was well spent. So hopefully, they'll tell everyone they know how great your CD is, and go and buy it.
Typesetting and layout for the insert, Jewel case tray card and CD itself. This can be a lot of work if you are not trained in graphic arts. The look of your packaging is the listener's first impression. It is well worth the couple of hundred dollars (if you have it) to have a professional lay out your artwork and text. They know the formats for the printer, and all the details like color separations, registration marks, file formats, etc. Make sure that your proof prints are exactly what you want, and that there are no defects. You will be asked to approve them before production.
Photos of the band. These are very important. What is the purpose of the band photo? Are you putting it in the CD? Are you handing our 8 by 10 glossies to fans? Are you making a press kit? If you can afford a professional photographer it can be well worth the results.
Selection of manufacturer. Choosing a good CD manufacturer with a proven track record is really important. I say this only because I went with someone I never heard of, because a good friend was working for them at the time, and they undercut a market leader by a few hundred dollars. What should have taken two to three weeks took four months. Because of this delay, we missed out on many marketing and sales opportunities. After being burned like this, I will say that you basically get what you pay for. In retrospect, I should have cancelled the job when they laid off my friend (which they did at the beginning). Also, be aware that the time period from September to November is very busy for CD manufacturers. That is when they start producing high volume Christmas sales items, and small jobs get pushed aside.
Obtaining permission to use copyrighted material. You actually should have these before you start recording (because if you don't get them, why spend money and time recording something you can't use?). You can contact the publisher of the music, the performance society (such as ASCAP), or the author him/herself for permission. You should get it in writing, and make whatever royalty arrangements you need to make in writing as well. If you don't know who wrote something, you can check the copyright archives on line.
And because I didn't have enough to do, I started preliminary marketing in the form of the band's website. I admit that I really enjoy doing websites, so it wasn't what I would call a hardship. There is a lot to know about how to make a site good looking and also easy to use. More than is appropriate for me to tell you here. All I will say for now is that you can put a website up for little or no money, and every band should have one. I will talk about marketing in the next installment,
Part 4: A roomful of plastic.