Recording

I’d like to address a subject all new, present, and future original artists should be thinking about all the time. Recording.

Recording is the single most important task in an artist’s career. Your entire career will be made or broken by what you record. A great recording can provide a long and fruitful career. A bad recording will put you on the fast track to nowhere. Even if you make more money from touring and playing shows than selling your music, people only come to those shows because they liked the music you recorded.

A good recording is made up of three main things.

1. A good song.

I shouldn’t have to describe what a good song is. But, lately I’ve noticed more and more that local music in general is getting worse by the day. To keep it simple I’ll just give you two questions to ask yourself. Do complete strangers from the audience tell me how great this song is? Do other bands and musicians criticize this song for being to “poppy” or accuse me of “selling out” for writing it? If you can answer yes to both of these questions, I’d say you have a descent chance that it’s a good song. If you can’t answer yes to both questions, then I’d advise you to put it aside and get back to writing.

Remember, the opinions of other bands are worthless unless they are lashing out in jealousy. If that’s happening then you’re doing something very right.

2. A good performance.

If you can’t play your instruments in tune and in time, you’re not ready for recording. The single most important part of the performance is the vocals. I cannot stress enough that you must have a good singer with a good voice and every note must be in key. Everything, and I mean everything, should compliment the singers part. I’m not sorry if that hurts the other band member’s egos because it’s the truth.

High speed squealing guitar solos, jumping off of risers, and screaming like Emily Rose may impress a handful of teenagers with no money to buy your music but that’s where it stops.

3. Sound quality

If you don’t sound like a professional you aren’t going to be treated like one. If you are willing to sound like you recorded your music on a cassette player in your parent’s basement then you don’t take your music seriously enough to be wasting your time with it.

With that said, many of you are on a budget and I can sympathize with that. Save your money for as long as it takes. You can find a decent studio with a sound engineer for as low as 35-45 dollars an hour in most major cities. That’s way better than doing it yourself if you don’t have the right training. There is a lot that goes into engineering even a mediocre recording that takes a lot of time and experience to learn.  It takes more than expensive software and microphones. Recording is both a science and art. Get some help with it. Your music is too important to not.

Getting Signed

I imagine that if your reading this blog you are more than likely a musician who hopes to find a way to get that ever-elusive opportunity of signing with a record label.  I’m going to give you some very important pointers that you will need.  For the sake of time, we’ll skip the part about how your band needs to not suck. I am going to just assume that those of you paying attention already have what it takes.

Promo Materials

If you want to get noticed you have to be visible. You aren’t going to be noticed unless you get heard and seen, a lot. Get an electronic press kit together. I cannot stress the importance of good photos enough. When I’m searching for a new act to sign, I pass on at least 99% of what I come across without even listening to it. The reason is that I, like every other professional looking for new talent, know that if the act doesn’t take themselves seriously enough to get good photos, then they have no shot at success.

Cliché photos of your band looking angry or away from the camera are bad. What’s worse are the groups who take their promo shots dressed up in costumes, playing with toy guns, or Photoshop themselves to make it look like they are walking on water. Goofy gimmicks only send the message that you are too immature to handle the recording budget or a professional tour.

Spread

Once you have your EPK ready. You need to spread it like plague. You have free advertising access to the entire world through the Internet. Sign up for every social network you can get your hands on and ALWAYS leave a contact email address. You should have a seperate email address listed as being specifically for inquiries from booking agents, managers, publishers, and labels. I have personally been interested in a couple of artists that I literally could not find because there was no way of contacting them. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that, as a professional, I don’t feel comfortable sending you a MySpace message that will get lost in the pile of fan mail. Weeks or months later, you’ll notice that message in the inbox and come running to the label with open arms, only to find out that somebody else got your spot. No label, even a major, has the money to sign everyone they like. So, get ahead of the crowd.

Don’t just wait for labels to notice you. Go after them. Send your EPK to the ones that accept unsolicited materials. Yes, some labels do accept unsolicited material.

In fact, you have my permission to send your stuff to ArchetypeRecordsLLC@gmail.com. If you reference this blog in the subject line I promise that somebody at the label will listen to your stuff. You’d be pretty dumb to pass up that opportunity.

EPK submission is the same as job hunting. For every 150 EPK’s you send out, you’ll get one phone call or email. For every 20 phone calls or emails you get, one will pan out to something that helps your career in one way or another.

It’s a long road but it’s worth the effort. It just takes a little bit of work every day.