One of the online sales techniques I’ve been advocating in my online courses is for artists to create different physical and digital products and make them available on their own site at tiered price points. The idea is that you can offer something for all of your fans – the hard core fans might be interested in something from you that is a little more personalized and rare, and newer fans might be able to get something from you that wont break the bank. All the while you have the ability to offer something that cannot be purchased at traditional retail, which makes the experience of purchasing off of your site more rewarding for your fans. Here’s an example from the Yim Yames site:

Determining what you offer – and at what price point – is an art that takes into account a number of factors. For example, if the goal of your campaign is to expose your music to as many folks as possible, you’ll want to price some of your items lower and take a lower margin per unit. You’ll also want to take into account what unique items your specific psychographic would respond to the best. If you’ve determined that one of the psychographic traits your community shares with you is a love for vegetarian food, you might want to create a downloadable PDF vegetarian cookbook for your fans as a value add (similar to what Jonsi and Alex did for their fans).

Another important factor in creating an effective product and pricing plan is to use data to determine what options might create the best result for you; which brings me to the point of my post.

John Grubber turned me onto a fantastic post written a few weeks ago by Craig Mod, describing how he and Ashley Rawlings used the fundraising website Kickstarter to self publish a book by generating $24,000 in 30 days. The entire post is well worth reading, and although Craig and Ashley’s goal was to generate funding for their book, I think there’s a lot of similarities between his execution on Kickstarter and the execution of a successful music-focused DTF sales campaign on your own site.

Once Craig and Ashley had determined the overall goal of their campaign – to sell enough books to generate a return substantial enough to further expand their existing or similar publishing endeavors – their next step was to figure out what their strategy would be for the pledge tier offerings. WIth Kickstarter, people pledge a pre-determined amount of money towards a project on a tiered basis, and get something tangible in return, once the project is funded. Kickstarter’s tiered pledge functionality is not dissimilar to what a musician would offer for sale on their own site to their fans.

What was really interesting to me about what Craig and Ashley did for their book project was that they looked at the top 30 grossing Kickstarter campaign to determine the most successful tiers of pledges. This provided Craig with data that he could use, in his words, to “look for a balance between number of pledges and overall percentage contribution of funds.” Take a look at his graph below:

Chris’ analysis of this data is spot in, and I’d like to quote his thoughts from his blog, here:

“This data is, of course, hardly perfect (for example, not every project I looked at used the same tiers). But it’s good enough to give us a sense of what price ranges people are comfortable with.

Having too many tiers is very likely to put off supporters. I’ve seen projects with dozens of tiers. Please don’t do this. People want to give you money. Don’t place them in a paradox of choice scenario! Keep it simple. I’d say that anything more than five realistic tiers is too many.”

The overall results that Craig outlines above are generally similar for musicians who offer a range of products at tiered pricing levels on their own site. While I do think that offerings of less than $25 do make sense for most musicians, Craig’s overall idea of not providing too many low cost items make sense. For example, I’ve spoken to a number of my students and other artists that are interested in offering $1.00 singles off of their site. While this is possible to do, providing a lower revenue option like that tends to incentivize potential curious fans downward, as opposed to incentivizing folks to purchase a higher priced option.

Based on the data that Craig obtained from past Kickstarter campaigns, he created the following pledge tiers:

Lastly, Craig and Ashley engaged in a wonderful online promotional campaign that focused on their permission based social medial digital touchpoints, as well as key design blogs and magazine sites that were completely in target with their psychographic and demographic. They focused their messaging campaign using Twitter and Facebook (their messaging was relevant and minimal, too), as well as their own mailing list.
Craig and Ashley had build up an extensive mailing list of design and art world over the past 6 years, which they leveraged nicely. Take a look at the timing of their targeted email campaigns, and the results:

Example of the artwork that was used for the email:

Perhaps most impressive was Craig’s outreach strategy to the blogs that he felt were a laser shot target for what he was doing with this project, and his method of communication to them. He was not focused on quantity of external outreach – he was more interested in the quality of the blogs he did focus on. Again, this is fundamental marketing strategy that all artists could use to their benefit. Again, in Craig’s words:

“I’m writing to blogs that I’ve been reading for years, so for me, referencing older posts of theirs and personalizing these emails is trivial, and fun. Whatever you do, don’t send scattershot emails to media outlets. Be thoughtful. The goal is to appeal to editors and public voices of communities that may have an interest in your work, not spam every big-name blog. A single post from the right blog is 1000% more useful than ten posts from high-traffic but off-topic blogs. You want engaged users, not just eyeballs!”

Here’s were his PR results on his project:

While we’re not talking apples to apples between what Craig and Ashley did with their book campaign and an online DTF music campaign, many of the best practices that Craig and Ashely employed in this campaign, from the data analysis they used, to their communication techniques are exactly what independent musicians should be focused on when they engage in online direct to fan sales and marketing campaigns.

This post I am sharing a historic moment in guitar history…a pedal that is not just another alteration of the clean guitar signal, but one that actually could change the way you play guitar in the context of your songs!

I just picked up one of these pedals for the modest price of US$120 and I am so excited I am calling my colleagues and playing it for them over the phone. Finally!…..A sustain pedal for guitarist…but a real one..simple and small, the size of a phase 90….one that takes us into the world that the pianists and keyboardists have enjoyed for so long.

The Electro-Harmonix Freeze pedal brings  “piano sustain” to the world of the guitar. Depress the pedal after you play a chord or note and as long as you keep your foot on the pedal, as you would with a keyboard or piano, you get infinite, crystal clear sustain.

What you will immediately realize is that when we, as guitarists, play chords, we accept the arc of the deterioration of signal (even if we have a guitar that sustains a la Nigel Tufner of Spinal Tap). In addition we have gotten used to the sound of different frequencies (strings) decaying at different rates, something for which keyboard players may not have the full appreciation.

With the Freeze pedal, when you finally hear the quality of all frequencies of your guitar sustained indefinitely, it is an amazing palette of sound. And…..you have the added ability to tweak as you play…play the strings harder and you will sustain a brighter organ-like sounds, then next measure, play softly,  and the tone is darker with the quality of a rhodes-pad.  All of this in the same song! You can play dynamically, according to the energy of the moment.  Add overdrive and a little rotary effect and you get the snarl that those B-3/Leslie luggers get when they turn that Leslie up to 11…

Since the Freeze pedal will sustain the sample at the moment you depress it, the entire frequency profile is sustained…hit the low notes and you get a dark pad, hit the high notes and it sounds as if you just pulled out those draw bars on a B-3…Here is a pedal that can be used in a very very dynamic and musical way.

In addition….the amazing bonus: your original signal is still available, so you can play licks and lines over your sustained pad, choosing either clean or effects as you go along.

I am currently working on a power trio project..funky versions of Jimi Hendrix tunes…and we are in the studio recording some of the arrangements.
The timing of this pedal was just right, and I picked it up on the way to the studio. I was able to lay down lush inversions of chords, sustained and held through rotary effects, creating what, in some cases, sounded a little like a hammond organ, or a synth pad. With this pedal, live  shows with power trios will be elevated to a new level.

The possibilities, as you can imagine in your moment of excitement, are endless, depending on your order of effects.

I use my Allston Amps Dumbalina  (I will share this amazing amp in an upcoming feature) which has built in overdrive. I can use the amp OD to get a nice edgy  pad sustained and then solo using a wah wah pedal before the Freeze. Or I can use the clean channel of the amp to get a smooth pad happening, maybe using my Ethos (see previous post) before the pedal to have an OD sound for soloing with a bite..

Try using a gradual wah on the sustained sound for an amazing voltage-controller-like effect, while you solo using on OD pedal placed before the Freeze. You can actually drive yourself crazy thinking of combinations!!! (Time the get the Cusack Pedalboard Tamer to help facilitate the combinations!)

The Freeze has a couple of different modes of use. You can use it the way a keyboard pedal works, or you can use it in Latch Mode. Latch mode does exactly that, allowing you to release your foot from the pedal and keep the sustain going until the next chord/switch. In the meantime, you can solo indefinitely. This mode allows you to walk around with your wireless or simply focus on other pedals to enhance the sustained sound or maybe ramp up the brake on a rotary pedal to get the Leslie acceleration effect.

Fast or Slow modes are available with a toggle for different speeds of fading in the effect and decaying after you release the pedal. The Volume knob only affects the volume of the sustain, not the original signal so you can decide how loud you want the sustained pad to play under your subsequent licks and lines.

The Freeze uses a provided 9v power supply. No provision made for battery with this unit, but the standard 9v wall-wart, or power supply on your pedalboard will do just fine.

The EHX Freeze gets my highest rating on the “Cool Pedal” scale!!! AAAA++++

Here is an interesting youtube demo of the pedal in practical action:

My friend George Howard recently wrote a great article for Berklee’s Music Business Journal.  In it he explains how music marketers can connect more closely with the fans that matter as they try and propel their band forward.  Here is an…

This summer, I attended a three-day intensive course entitled “How To Make A Great Preschool Series.” It was offered by Emmy Award-Winning Josh Selig’s company, Little Airplane Productions in NYC.

It was an incredible experience and I learned so much! The presenters were a never-ending A-list of truly accomplished and dedicated professionals. During the three day program, I learned about pitching, writing, curriculum development, directing, music, legal, and production aspects of both live-action and animated preschool programs.

The overarching message I came away with was “through education, anything is possible!” The presenters were incredibly informative and encouraging, and they all offered to help the attendees beyond the conclusion of the academy.

Much like Berkleemusic students, the attendees were an eclectic mix of diverse professionals with a common passion and a desire to learn more. Whether it’s music, preschool program development, or any professional pursuit, I’m constantly reminded that continuing education and lifelong learning is key to a successful and rewarding career.

Thanks Josh Selig, Tone Thyne, Jeffrey Lesser, and Melinda Richards and all of the Little Airplane Academy staff and Instructors for an amazing experience and a reminder that anything is possible through education!

Here’s a moderately happy ending to a story that we first started following in the blog “Welcome To the Hotel California”, back in May. That posting recounted the story of Don Henley’s decision to pursue legal action against Chuck Devore, former GOP candidate for California’s US Senate seat. This would-be champion of the American people (a group which would presumably include songwriters and music publishers, at least in California) had opted for the questionable campaign strategy of using Henley’s songs, “Boys of Summer” and “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” (Henley’s co-writers, Danny Kortchmar and Mike Campbell joined him in the lawsuit) as a means to ridicule DeVore’s political opponents, Senator Barbara Boxer (Dem-California) and President Barak Obama.

As you might remember, DeVore and his co-defendant Justin Hart, the campaign’s Internet director, had re-written the lyrics to both songs, re-recorded the vocals with the new lyrics, and then posted their new creations on YouTube. Truly, it seems everyone in California, even a conservative Republican state Assemblyman, wants to be in show business.

Interestingly, the whole case hinged on the difference between “parody”, which is allowed under the principle of “fair use”, and “satire”, which requires the permission of the copyright owner. The court rejected DeVore’s argument that the new lyrics parodied the original song, and concluded that the new lyrics were indeed “satire”, directed at the candidate’s political opposition. Here’s the distinction:

Parodies are re-written versions of a song which poke fun primarily at the original song. Most of Weird Al’s work falls in this category, as do the things you hear on morning radio shows. The principle of fair use provides that once you put your work into the public realm, people can re-record it, re-arrange it, or make fun of it without your direct permission. It’s called free speech.

On the other hand, satire is a different animal. A satirical use takes the song and employs it in order to make fun of someone or something else, outside of the song or the songwriter. That function requires the permission of the copyright holder, as one is now altering and using the song to say something the songwriter never intended. Despite DeVore’s legal arguments, it’s pretty clear that the uses of Henley’s songs were satirical, because they didn’t so much ridicule the songs themselves or Henley as an artist, but rather political figures never mentioned in the original lyrics.

Incredibly, DeVore and Hart would seem to have made another miscalculation when they chose to put their creations on YouTube, presumably in synchronization with a visual image. As Music Publishing 101 students will recognize, this requires a synchronization license, which must be negotiated with all of the parties who control the copyright. And DeVore calls himself a “law-maker”? Maybe he should try reading some of them.

He probably will now, as he’s seen firsthand the consequences of copyright infringement. Not only was the case settled for payment of an undisclosed sum, DeVore had to issue an apology to the songwriters, which must have really rankled.

“We apologize for using the musical works of Don Henley, Mike Campbell, and Danny Kortchmar without respect for their rights under copyright law. The court’s ruling in this case confirms that political candidates, regardless of affiliation, should seek appropriate license authority before they use copyrighted works”, they admitted. Oh and by the way, despite his display of songwriting genius, DeVore lost the primary election to Carly Fiorina. Talk about so much wasted time.

On the heels of his legal victory, Henley gave an exclusive interview with the website, Copyrights and Campaigns (www.copyrights and campaigns.blogspot.com), a great website, full of information about current developments in copyright law. The most interesting thing about the interview was not Henley’s acknowledgement of his big win, which he called “a moral victory, and a victory for every copyright holder in the United States”. What struck me about Henley’s interview was the almost valedictory tone of resistance in the face of overwhelming odds, as he tried to make a case that songs were works of art that deserved at least some fundamental respect, just as one doesn’t generally paint mustaches on the Mona Lisa or sing along at the opera. As Don confessed, he’s running against the winds of change on this issue:

Henley blasted all unauthorized uses of his music, whether by politicians or just amateurs making remixes, mash-ups, and similar unlicensed uses on sites like YouTube. “I don’t condone it,” he said of such practices. “I’m vehemently opposed to it. People in my age group generally don’t like it. Songs are difficult to write; some of them take years to write. To have them used as toys and playthings is frustrating”. Henley noted that he does not license his songs for commercials and only rarely does so for uses in films and television. (Copyrightsandcampaigns.com)

In fact, the concerns that Henley raises allude to a much bigger, deeper and more relevant issue than any dispute on the distinction between parodies and satire. The truth is that the few growth opportunities that exist in music publishing are exactly in the areas that Henley is complaining about. Lyrics on t-shirts? Mash-ups on the internet? Music as background for games, toys or greeting cards? Music to sell products, music with funny homemade videos, music as ringtones, music for karaoke games or music as fashion accessory? These are the things fueling what little growth exists in the music industry. But Henley is right—they don’t sit very comfortably with a generation that once thought music held the potential for political or social change, or that at least popular music could aim for an artistic value beyond Top 40 charts and novelties.

This larger issue holds a number of important implications for music publishers. The most obvious concern is that music publishers need to understand their rights under their various writer-publisher contracts, as well as the rights of their songwriters. Who has the final approval on licensing opportunities like advertisements, synchronization placements or even satires? In most instances, the publisher, as the owner of the copyright, has the power to license, but many contracts will allow the songwriters to specify specific uses which require the writers’ permission. Some contracts may exclude particular exploitations entirely. And of course, administration deals will frequently give the publisher less control than a full or co-publishing agreement.

More importantly, publishers need to get a sense from their songwriters where each composer falls on the subject that Henley raises. Some will be more than happy to embrace any new opportunity you can dig up. Others will be appalled that you even considered putting their “baby” in a game or on a mobile phone. It’s in the long-term interests of all parties to understand each other’s point of view before requests come in, rather than after .

Especially for younger songwriters and publishers, it might be worth considering whether there’s some real insight in Henley’s comments. Back in March, my dispatch from SXSW in Austin noted that music seemed to increasingly exist solely as a marketing tool—not to sell the music itself, but to sell other products or shows. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. Perhaps it explains why we have a society in which, as it’s so often noted, music is more present than ever, yet less and less valued.

There’s no question that the generation that made Don Henley a star continues to care more deeply about music, purchase more of it, attend more concerts, and support its artists longer and more unwaveringly than the generations that followed. Maybe that’s because the people who made the music took it seriously, believed it meant something, and refused to compromise on how it could be presented. It bothered them to see a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac. Henley wrote the line as satire. The modern audience see it as just one more ironic ingredient in the pop cultural stew.

Earlier this summer, I was in Montreal for the 11th annual MUTEK Festival of Electronic Music and Art, June 2 through June 6. The festival organizers have worked hard over the years to make this a premier electronic music event, and attending for the first time this year, I saw why. The range of electronic music presented by over 150 artists covers the entire gamut of electronic music, from experimental noise and sound art to classic house music and just about everything in between. The schedule itself was daunting, but much to the organizers credit, they released a very useful iPhone app that organized the schedule and gave a brief overview to each artist, including links to their MySpace pages and other Web resources. The app is free and you should still be able to download it and use it as a way to perhaps find out about the artist who appeared at MUTEK.

Minilogue at MUTEK 2010

To make sense of the range of artists, the festival was organized in several different series, each in it’s own venue. Experience and Ectoplasmes events were held in a black block theater that worked well for presenting audio-visual work as well as more experimental and emerging artists. The A/Visions series events were held in the Monument National concert hall. As the name suggests, many of the concerts here were multimedia presentations, with a massive display as the backdrop for the performers onstage. Nocturnes were club events held in three different venues not more than a block away from each other. SAT had more of an underground vibe, and while still in the dance genre, hosted edgier performers and DJs. Club Soda reminded me more of a classic dance club. Friday was the big club night and MUTEK attendees were in a constant flow between the two venues, checking out House and Techno at Soda and Dubstep at SAT. Metropolis was more of a concert club that also hosted small acts simultaneously in separate lounge. So, on just about any given night of the festival there were two different scenes going on. And, if that wasn’t enough, there were outdoor events as well, culminating with a free concert on Montreal’s main outdoor stage.

Montreal is a wonderful city for the arts and they really know how to present festivals. While I was there I saw no less than eight outdoor stages in various states of construction for what appeared to a very busy season that includes the well-established Montreal Jazz Festival. While MUTEK was an international festival there was an emphasis on Canadian artists. The Canadian government and a range of private sponsors support the festival with the caveat that it provides a venue for home-grown talent. Canada has a vibrant music scene with talented artists in all genres who are largely unknown outside of their county, and this was a good opportunity to check some of them out.

Señor Coconut at MUTEK 2010

For me, one of the big issues in electronic music is live performance, and the connection between studio production and how a work is performed. MUTEK provided a great opportunity to see a wide variety of performance styles, from DJs to computer-aided acoustic performances. What follows is an overview of some of the artists that impressed me at MUTEK and how they approached performing.

Matmos was one of the acts high on my list to check out at MUTEK. Partners since 1997, Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt are perhaps best known for their playful way of working with sampled sound, and have collaborated with a number of artists from Bjork PLOrk. Onstage, each has a distinct role, with Daniel on laptops and controllers and Schmidt on realtime keyboard and assorted noisemakers. In the Matmos brain, one half is digital, the other analog, and they have no problem navigating the aesthetic corpus callosum, and this distinction is one of the things that makes their music compelling. In an interview session the next day, they were very articulate in discussing their work and adopted home of Baltimore. Their work is highly conceptual with each of their albums centered around a core concept. While electronic music seems to offer infinite creative possibilities, they feel that limiting choices and creating from a core concept is essential. Although the idea of an "album" is rapidly disappearing, they feel it’s still an important part of their process. A good example of this is their 2008 release, Supreme Balloon, where the idea was to break their mold and create an album of purely synthesized sound, where no recordings of acoustic sources of any type are used. Fittingly, most of their set at MUTEK came from this work, culminating with the 24-minute piece Supreme Balloon, an electronic tour de force.

Matmos at MUTEK 2010

In contrast to the discipline of Matmos, Mouse on Mars thrive on a kind of controlled anarchy. The German duo of Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner began working together in 1993, with ten releases and numerous side projects to their credit. Their live set was a dense, rhythmic stew that seemed more stream of consciousness than composition. Each had a laptop, presumably running Ableton Live along with an assortment of controllers. There were no defined roles here and there was no clear connection between the sound and who it came from. Their production process has more to do with assembling ideas from sounds collected on their hard drives than a clear concept, where lots of sounds and idea get refined until an album is done. When is a project "done?" St Werner mentioned in an interview the day after their performance that record company deadlines and hard drive crashes are what signal the end their process. While they currently working on new material, their last studio effort came out in 2007, so perhaps the demise of record labels and more reliable hard drives are extending their creative process. They’ve actually spent a good part of the last few years performing live, often with a drummer, and they feel this experience energizes them for their work in the studio. In performance, it sounds like they’ve emptied the choices bits from their hard drives into Ableton Live and freely improvise their dance set.

Jon Hopkins at MUTEK 2010

One of the high points of the festival for me was Jon Hopkins‘ set. Most have probably heard of his work through his association with Coldplay, providing the opening and closing instrumental sections of their Viva La Vida CD, and opening for them on many dates during their last tour. Hopkins is a trained musician, and as a pianist and composer his work reflects a more traditional melodic and harmonic vocabulary. Given that, I didn’t know what to expect in a dance club performance. His hour-long set was absolutely brilliant, and showcased a well-rehearsed, seasoned electronic performer. Each piece was a composition, and I recognized a couple from his most recent release, Insides. My sense was that each piece provided an overall form and that he was free to extend sections and improvise variations. On stage, he mainly used two Korg Kaoss pads along with a keyboard controller, and with these, he was able to control every aspect of the performance, he’s clearly in the "controllerism" camp of live electronic performance. From the audience’s perspective, Hopkins was really "playing" his set and much of their reaction was not just to the music, but to the clear sense of virtuosity that he conveyed.

While this is just a small taste of what I experienced, there are numerous reviews and videos of MUTEK 2010 on the Web.

Believe it or not, the National Association of Broadcasters and the Recording Industry Association of America have announced that they want new digital  devices like cellphones, iPods and music players to be legally required to incorporate FM radio receivers.  This…

Believe it or not, the National Association of Broadcasters and the Recording Industry Association of America have announced that they want new digital  devices like cellphones, iPods and music players to be legally required to incorporate FM radio receivers.  This…

What do Houston TX, South Africa, Mexico City, San Juan PR, Ontario Canada, Brooklyn NY, Nonthaburi Thailand, Portland OR, Stockholm Sweden, Hampshire UK, Salt Late City UT, and Nashville TN all have in common?

They are home to just a handful of the more than 150 Berkleemusic students who successfully completed their online certificate programs last term. Today, I had the great pleasure of signing their letters of completion. It is always exciting for me to see how Berkleemusic brings people, with a passion for music and a desire to learn more, together from all corners of the world.

Congratulations to our Certificate Program graduates!

Hi Folks -

It seems the dust is beginning to settle at Avid. After restructuring and rebranding all of their component parts in their music divisions, Avid has finally announced some new products today… BIG NEW products.

They’re releasing three new Pro Tools HD interfaces (HD I/O, HD OMNI, and HD MADI), two of which will have soft-knee limiters so you don’t overload your input signals. Avid is also offering a software upgrade called HEAT which I’m extremely excited about. Designed by Dave Hill of Crane Song’s Phoenix plug-in, this software integrates and simulates the analog warmth of tubes and tape into every channel in Pro Tools. Read more here.

In more news, Pro Tools 8.1 is available now for HD users… download it here.

And Avid announced an upgrade of Torq for the Snow Leopard operating system today as well… read about it here.

Big news I’d say!

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While I was walking home tonight, I passed by a museum and something in the window caught my attention. It was a display of a small antique pipe organ from the late 1700’s– it looked like a very early attempt to create a miniature Wurlitzer that could be played at home. A rather odd, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” type of contraption, it reminded me of the homemade time travel machine rigged up by Doc Brown in “Back to the Future”. In its day, it probably looked as cool as the iPad. Now, it’s not something that anyone uses to get the job done.

The sight of this awkward, ungainly invention brought me back to an analogy made by one of my colleagues earlier in the day, as we discussed the current challenges of copyright licensing. “I feel like we’re trying to drive some old unrestored 1950’s clunker” he said, “the kind that only the old guy that owns it can actually drive, because you have to know just how to wiggle the gear shift and how many times to pump the brakes to make it all work”. I heard almost the same sentiment at a lunch with one of the industry’s most respected copyright lawyers. Everyone in the music business knows it’s true, though few will say it publicly, since it directly undermines our demands to get paid for what we own. But the old copyright system just ain’t working anymore. The truth is:

The process of licensing copyrights has to change drastically and fundamentally, if the whole concept of copyright is going to survive at all.

Right now, we’re driving down the Information Superhighway in that old 1950’s jalopy– we’ve got it floored and we’re doing about 35 miles an hour. Copyright holders are not only being run over, we’re also being passed by, as young entrepreneurs from the Google, YouTube, Spotify generation create global empires built on providing immediate, free access to entertainment and information. Meanwhile, the copyright community is still back somewhere on the side of the road, trying to figure out who owns the rights in which territory and for how long, and who has the right to issue the license, and how many licenses will be necessary, and what should the license cost. At best, we’re an impediment. At worst, we’re irrelevant.

Consider:

At a family wedding, the bride and groom do a crazy dance to a medley of big pop hits– it’s all relatively harmless (at least from a copyright standpoint) and clearly covered by the principle of “fair use”. After all, this is kind of what music was made for. But not too surprisingly, the dance is captured on videotape by the people filming the wedding. It’s then posted on YouTube, probably as a simple, cheap way of sharing the moment with family and friends. Again, it’s all still covered by fair use, since it’s largely a private activity and there’s no attempt to sell anything.

But suddenly, the family wedding video becomes a viral phenomenon, and millions of viewers go to YouTube to watch the silly dance, generating plenty of tangible economic benefit to YouTube in the process. At this point, clearly the copyrighted material contained in the video (that is the medley of recorded music to which the dance is performed) should be licensed, and the labels, artists, publishers and songwriters should be compensated. But how? Just a guesstimate would indicate that there could be 15 different artists, all of the major labels (some of which might no longer own the master recordings in question), probably at least fifty songwriters, and twenty different music publishers, each of whom would have to grant permission, and then play a role in determining the appropriate sync fee for each song. It would take months for a two minute home video, and probably cost in the six figure range. Ridiculous.

Here’s another:

A video collector owns outright some archival footage of a big star performing on a TV variety show from years ago, which a new mobile entertainment provider now wants to license and sell as a download to mobile phones in Asia. But within this short segment, the big star performs a song, which would have been licensed under a sync agreement that covered only that particular performance, in that territory, during a specific window of time. In order to use the footage in a different medium, territory and era, a new sync license will need to be negotiated with all of the publishers (many of whom have sold their catalogs or allowed the copyrights to revert to the songwriters). And then there’s the matter of union fees. Several of the performers on the show may have been members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG) or the American Federation of Musicians (AF of M), which means there might be residual payments due for any reuse of the show. Good luck figuring that one out.

A last example:

A music fan in Japan wants to purchase the new CD by an American act signed to Columbia/Sony Records in the US. The CD has never been released by Sony in Japan. The fan logs on to Amazon, locates the CD, and purchases it. But Amazon can’t fulfill the transaction, due to a copyright infringement lawsuit initiated by Sony Japan. As the local distributor of Sony product in that territory, Sony Japan owns the rights to sell that product in their region. By allowing the consumer to purchase directly from Sony in the US, Amazon is infringing on the copyright. And it’s true, even though Sony Japan has no intention of making the record available in Asia. As the copyright holder, the local company has the right to distribute the product or not, at their discretion.

In part, this explains why a consumer in the US who wants an album by a French artist released only in France can’t simply go on iTunes and purchase it. He or she can go to iTunes France and see the album or hear samples of the music. Certainly, the consumer can steal the record on any number of illegal sites. But purchase it? Nah. That would be copyright infringement. Go figure.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I’m a staunch defender of copyright. I’m not a believer that information wants to be free. I am however realistic enough to know that information wants at least to be available, at some generally reasonable price. Right now, our copyright laws are a hodgepodge of political compromises and outdated principles, all changing from country to country. In a global world, they are structured territory by territory. In a society based on instant access and immediate gratification, they are restrictive and reliant on step by step negotiations with half a dozen different parties for a single use. They can’t survive like this.

Unfortunately, there are no attractive solutions. Clearly, any reform needs to be done on a global level. The web is worldwide after all. That should be easy. We can take it up right after we solve the problem of world hunger and get everyone to agree on global warming.

Even worse, the only viable answer to the internet-related problems seems to lie in some kind of system of blanket licensing, similar to that used by the performing rights organizations to collect on music being used in public venues. In some form or another, a tax or surcharge would need to be assessed on electronic equipment or computer technology, or directly on internet service providers, mobile phone networks and other “distributors”. The money collected would then be shared among the entire creative community, from publishers and labels to artists, writers and union members.

If that seems like a simple and clean resolution, it’s not. The problem is that all of the money would go into a fund, and then be distributed to the copyright holders without any clear way of attributing it to a specific use. Worse, the ability of each individual copyright holder to negotiate fees on his or her own behalf and to collect them would be lost– thus eliminating two of the major functions of a music publisher in one fell swoop. In essence, such a move would make much of the music publishing role obsolete. If only for reasons of self-interest, it’s not a proposal I relish.

The only thing worse is the alternative, which is what’s happening now. We are already becoming obsolete, simply because people are ignoring us. Sure, we can still make things grind to a halt with a major lawsuit here or there, or exact our revenge with a jumbo copyright-infringement settlement–after about ten years in court, fighting appeal after appeal. But the judges are getting less sympathetic, the law is seeming less and less just to society at large, and the internet generation is moving ahead without us. Most importantly, we’re leaving stacks of money on the table every day, by not being able to take advantage of licensing opportunities for our music. There’s no value in owning copyrights if no one has the time, patience or money to license them. Already, more and more creators are simply making new product which they own in its entirety, and licensing it directly to individual services.

There was an article in the New York Times today, about an inmate who after having been wrongfully imprisoned on death row for twenty years had just been set free. His one request to a benefactor had been a Walkman, only to be informed that no one used them any more, and handed an iPod. As the surprised ex-con acknowledged, it’s painful sometimes, but things change. You have to move on.

Otherwise, you’re an artifact in a museum window.

I’m very excited to announce that my new CD is out, Erik Hawk & The 12-Bit Justice League. If you like electronic dance music fused with orchestral elements, I think you’ll enjoy this CD. Plus, the physical CD contains remix stems (WAV, REX, and MIDI files) for your remixing and DJ-ing pleasure. The physical CD can be purchased through CD Baby, and digital only downloads are widely available, from iTunes to Amazon.

Here’s the official press blurb:

The new album by Erik Hawk, Erik Hawk & The 12-Bit Justice League, plays like the soundtrack to an action movie. Every song could underscore a scene, from the opening action of “Introductions”, to the heroics of “On a Mission”, and the closing images of “Into the Sunset”. So, it comes as no surprise to learn that Hawk’s alter ego is composer/producer/remixer, Erik Hawkins. His music has been featured in countless film and television shows (from The Informers, to Ugly Betty, and CSI:Miami).

Joining Hawk on his musical adventures are several critically acclaimed musicians, including Gilli Moon (vocals), Christine Wu (violin), Lygeia Ferra (vocals), Craig Seganti (trumpet), and the album was mastered by pioneering hip-hop producer/engineer Michael Denten. Hawk wrote/co-wrote, arranged, and produced all of the tracks. He plays guitar, keyboards, and sings throughout the album.

To keep up with announcements, shows, placements, and contests, join me on Facebook.

And, here’s my official YouTube announcement:

Former Pink Floyd and T Rex manager Peter Jenner, now emeritus president of the International Music Managers’ Forum, talks online music, copyright and the future of the music industry.  It is very satisfying to see the ideas expressed in our…

I know it’s summer and everything, but let’s face it– I’m a New Yorker. I’m not much for gardening or working in the yard. Nevertheless, I recently found myself battling the forces of nature in preparation for an upcoming outdoor barbecue, trying to singlehandedly turn an overgrown, out of control patch of jungle into own of those tame, manicured, Hampton-like lawns. With all the sweating and cursing, the endless labor and the distinct lack of progress, it felt about like a day in the music business, during what has to be the deadest, most uninspired period I’ve ever seen during 25 years in this industry.

In a summer that has seen continued dismal record sales, falling publishing incomes, the crash of the touring business, and worst of all, the tragedy at Love Parade in Germany, the whole music biz seems stuck in the kind of dreary, gray blanket of stale air that has hung over NYC for most of the summer. It’s hot, uncomfortable and nothing’s moving.

Even Billboard seems to be struggling to come up with anything to fill the pages. Last week they ran an article about a consortium of European banks who are partnering with Universal Music, to offer a discount subscription for music downloads with the opening of every new bank account or charge card. Out of 200 participating banks in Germany, 6,000 people have signed up. That’s 30 people per bank. Jeez. 30 people? And they wrote an article about it? Must’ve been a slow news day.

Staring out at a wild, unruly, tangled mess of a field, it’s not easy to leave the lawn chair and get out the weed-whacker, but we’re quickly nearing the point of no return. It’s August, and the fourth quarter is about to kick in. Somehow, the industry has to find a way to start at least laying the groundwork for better times ahead. Undeniably, it’s been a bad year in the fields. Still, we have to start doing the obvious work to get something growing again:

Step One: Take Control

Nature abhors a void. Even when it looks like nothing is happening, something is going on. Right now, even as the music industry stands still, other more dynamic businesses, from social networking companies to Apple to mobile networks to investment companies are expanding their influence, grabbing our audience, choking off some of our own opportunities and redefining the entertainment landscape on their terms, not ours.

It’s incredible that even after losing control of the music industry to MTV way back in the 1980s, then losing it again to illegal file-sharing in the first part of this decade, and yet again to Apple and iTunes in the second half of the decade, the record companies and music publishing companies have still not offered up anything to even attempt to control the playing field in their own industry. Streaming didn’t originate with record labels or publishers. Neither did the iPad or YouTube. Given the extent to which they’ve benefited from it, why did a music publisher not come up with a TV-show like “Glee” years ago?

If we don’t want to think beyond making music, then we can rest assured that someone else will. Then they, not us, will decide how our product is marketed, distributed, and sold, as well as what price it will sell for.
Don’t believe it? Notice how 80 years later we’re still going hat in hand to the radio industry, begging them to play our records (and in the case of the record industry, wishing they would actually pay us something to do it). Why does every new initiative in the music business seem to revolve around piggy-backing on someone else’s innovation, like making a channel on YouTube or taking an ownership share in Spotify? If you don’t control your turf, someone controls it for you.

Step Two: Clear out the dead.

You can’t hope for much new growth until you get out the wheelbarrow and start cleaning up the mess. This is actually one huge advantage for new, small companies entering the business. At least they’re starting fresh. The great burden being carried by all of the major music corporations is the fact that they have little choice but to manage the slow death of the CD, and the whole traditional business model that surrounds it. Everyone knows that it’s on it’s way out. If they could, they’d kill it off entirely. But the truth is that it’s still the primary source of income. No one can afford to abandon it. Consequently, too many resources go into keeping the dead man walking, while the infant survives on whatever is left.

For those who are still forming their overall business strategy, this is an opportunity to embrace a new model, free of the ties to the past that are strangling the industry’s major players. Take advantage of it. You don’t have to build your business around manufacturing CDs, or getting radio airplay, or trying to place songs on million-selling albums, or focusing on your own home territory simply because that’s what everyone has always done. Those old branches of the tree quit growing years ago. Anyone trying to hang onto them is going to be hearing a distinct cracking sound in the next five years.

Of course, abandoning the old ways of doing business means you’ll have to come up with new ones. That’s never easy. But it’s easier to create something new and alive if you’re not spending 80 percent of your time trying to resuscitate something dead.

Step Three: Look at what grows naturally.

None of us are completely in control of our own fate. Sometimes you decide what will grow in your garden, and other times, no matter how hard you try, the garden decides what will grow. We all have to adapt to our environment, and the faster we do it, the easier our life will be.

Part of the reason the music business continues to struggle is that it’s been determined to force results out of a market that simply doesn’t want what it’s offering. People don’t buy albums. Fine. Sell them something else. The audience is constantly shifting and losing interest. It’s frustrating, but it’s nature. Give them a constant stream of new songs, rather than ten new ones every two years.

In most cases, the marketing strategies that have worked recently, from mixtapes to YouTube videos to mashups to blogs, have grown up naturally out of their environment. Meanwhile, the field is littered with millions of marketing gimmicks, from “enhanced” CDs to special “fan club” subscriptions, that emanated from corporate planning sessions, only to dry up and wither when they ran into a skeptical and disinterested fanbase. If it’s not happening at a grass-roots level, then the grass won’t grow. Work with the forces of nature, not against them.

Step Four: Plant a seed.

A few years ago, I decided to plant some trees. Being the impatient city boy that I am, I decided the bigger the better. I bought trees that were already at least half grown, planted them, then looked around and admired my efforts. Within a few days, I had a garden that looked as if it had been growing for years. Within three months, I had a garden full of big, dead trees.

Later, an Englishman (and hence, a genetically gifted gardener) suggested that instead I should buy some tiny little saplings. The theory was that if they died, I’d hardly notice. At the same time, being very young, they were more likely to adapt to the soil and eventually start to grow. So far anyway, it seems to be working.

Much of the reason that the music industry has failed to discover new technologies on its own, or clear out the old failing business models, or even jump on trends that have taken root at street-level, is that the large corporations that dominate the field want things to be too big, too fast. Faced with the pressure of producing quarterly results, they can’t wait for a new idea to grow. Just as they can’t afford to nurture artists through a three or four album development, neither can they nurture new business strategies or marketing initiatives that could take years to pay off.

Again, those just now staking their claim to a tiny spot on the music business landscape have a real edge here. If you keep your overheads low and your expectations reasonable, you can afford to let nature take its course. Try your new idea in an inexpensive, low-risk way. Take a deep breath or two. If it doesn’t take, it’s no great loss. But if you see it growing, you can patiently nurture it along, until it suddenly has a life of its own.

Last weekend at the barbecue, I spoke with a friend in the garment business, who has a clothing company in New York. He explained to me that even fifteen years ago, there were dozens of manufacturers, tailoring shops, pattern-makers and fabric factories throughout the country who created garments for a wide variety of clothing lines. Today, there are virtually none. Trade policies, wage pressures from developing countries, outdated union rules, organized crime, and short-sighted management policies combined to essentially eliminate the industry. We’re not talking about a tough business cycle. The dress-makers, weavers, tailors and other specialists have left the country or found other work. The machines have been sold off. It’s not coming back.

Industries do die. It’s not enough to reassure ourselves that “music will always exist”. Sure. But will the music industry? It didn’t exist much before the 1900s. It doesn’t have any guarantees for the future. Another six months has come and gone, and nothing is happening. Sooner, rather than later, we better get out the shovel and start digging our way out of this mess.

I think the advertising tagline of the New Music Seminar, held last week in NYC, should have been changed from “The Revolution Starts Here” to “Welcome to the War Zone”. That seems to better capture the mood at the parts of the conference I attended— battered, beleaguered, angry and afraid. Very afraid.

And for good reason. During one presentation, NMS’s organizers Tom Silverman and Eric Garland from BigChampagne laid out the real numbers that music makers and marketers are up against, and as most of us in the industry already knew, it wasn’t pretty. These numbers have since been flying around the internet, as a rather fitting post-script to an event that was supposed to celebrate new music. If this is the revolution, I think we’re losing:

Albums that sold at least one copy in 2009: 98,000
Albums selling less than 1,000 units in their first year of release: 92,601
Albums selling more than 10,000 units in 2009: 1,319
Albums selling more than 5,000 units in 2009: 2.058
Albums selling more than 250,000 units in 2009: 85

As these numbers have circulated, I’ve seen several comments questioning their accuracy– wondering for instance if they include worldwide sales. It doesn’t matter. Anyone who is hoping that international numbers will significantly change the picture is dreaming– the record business in Europe is in a free fall and Latin America just posted similarly dismal results. We can’t kid ourselves. The fact is that no one working in the industry on a daily basis would dispute these numbers. There is simply far too much music chasing an ever-dwindling audience.

Rather than making excuses or trying to find a silver lining in the storm clouds, our best response to the crisis is a crash course in survival skills. Of course, there are obvious external forces that are causing much of the industry’s pain– most notably the fact that every kid around the world over 10 years old has figured out how to take our product for free. Certainly, there’s a need for a concerted effort across the industry to combat piracy of all kinds. But you and I, working on our own, aren’t going to solve that one. Given the daunting situation staring us in the face, let’s focus on what really matters: saving ourselves.
How do we rise above the masses of people spending money, putting out music, and seeing little or no results? Here are three fundamental tips:

1. Be Strategic.

Most people making albums have put more thought into the artwork and the credits than they’ve put into what they’re actually going to do with the music. Incredibly, that is as true at a major label level as it is with self-funded indie efforts. Projects are green-lit, recording studios booked, producers engaged without anyone having given serious consideration to basic marketing questions like:
Who is this act’s audience?
How does that audience listen to music?
What kinds of records are they willing to purchase?
How do you reach that audience in order to market to them?
Which of those marketing methods are feasible, given your budget?
If it needs the support of radio, does the record have a clear radio single?
If you need to sell the CDs at shows, does the act have opportunities to tour?
Given the results of similar acts, how many records can you reasonably expect to sell?
How much then can you afford to spend on making and marketing the record?

If you are a hip-hop or a dance-pop act, your audience is entirely single-driven, even at a superstar level. Consequently, until you have a hit single there is no reason to make an album. If you make jazz records, all indications are that the audience responds only to artists who have established a level of credibility through touring and playing with well-known musicians. If you haven’t done that yet, then don’t make a record. For a country artist, there are very few ways to reach a sizeable audience without radio airplay. If your budget is tight, then better to record one single and use the rest of the money to promote it than to record ten songs that no one will ever hear. For a singer-songwriter with only a small local following, selling 500 CDs might seem like victory, rather than defeat. And indeed it can be, providing you can make the whole product for under a few thousand dollars. The key here is to have a plan.

2. Be Realistic.

The reason that most artists, record label executives, and producers approach their recording projects without the requisite strategy is that the process of planning requires a reality-check. As Simon Cowell would happily point out, most artists could benefit more from a look in the mirror, an honest self-appraisal and perhaps some frank feedback from family and friends than years of lessons and words of encouragement.

In pop music, artists have to look like stars, have endless stamina, possess a drive and work-ethic that go well beyond obsessive, and rely on a charm that wins over anyone who meets them. If that’s not you, then don’t waste what could be a successful career as a producer or songwriter churning out ill-fated solo albums. If you’re a rock band that can’t play live, then making records is an exercise in futility. Hip-hop acts need some kind of street-level following. If you’re not generating a response on that basic level, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board. A DJ/producer who makes records that differ drastically from what he or she plays at a club is bound to disappoint the audience.

Don’t fool yourself. Don’t rationalize and don’t look for miracles. If you can’t hear your music objectively or see yourself clearly, then you’re not ready to make a record.

3. Be Frugal.

Most major record companies spend both too much and too little–blowing money on travel expenses, dozens of misguided mixes, over-cutting and endless experimenting with changes in direction, only to suddenly pull back when the marketing, promotion, and tour support bills come in.

While the scale of spending differs drastically on an indie level, the same kinds of mistakes show up again and again. Artists operating on a shoestring cut an album where a single would have sufficed, or an album when an EP would have been more effective, or put 15 songs on a record rather than 9 or 10, as if the sheer number of songs would be a selling point. They spend money on vague, abstract artwork for their album cover that presents no visual image to communicate their identity to an audience. They hire an independent radio promoter to work a song to radio without a budget sufficient to break the song in any meaningful way.

While it’s not going to make anyone a fortune, to sell less than 5,000 records, or even less than 1,000 is not necessarily a bad thing. One thousand CDs at $15 a piece still makes $15,000. If it cost $5000 to make and promote the record, then it was a profitable venture– putting you ahead of 90% of the major label releases each year. The problem occurs when you’ve spent $17,000 to make the record, and you haven’t even begun to market it. When you’re operating in a sales environment as difficult as the one we face at the moment, you must be able to record at minimal expense, get the most value for your dollar, and put your money where it can generate results. This is a market the leaves no room for error, and even less for extravagance.

I’m continually amazed at the number of beginning artists, with no following at even a local level, no obvious radio single, and not even a clear artistic direction, proudly announce to me that they’re “working on their record”. Former multi-million selling acts like Matchbox 20 struggle to sell records in the current market, and yet here is a new act with less than a hundred people in their fanbase making an album. Why?

The answer is: because it’s too easy. The ease of home-recording, the universal availability of digital distribution, and the rise of the DIY ethos have removed many of the barriers to music-making, and that’s a good thing. But by doing so, it’s caused many artists to feel that recording their own record is some kind of rite of passage that must be fulfilled at the earliest possible date.

Athletes often talk about having “a respect for the game”. That just means that no matter how talented or gifted a sports star might be, he or she still has to appreciate the difficulty of what’s being undertaken, whether it’s hitting a 90 mile an hour fastball or pedaling a bicycle up a mountain, and must be prepared to do the hard work necessary to be victorious.

The scary numbers that many of us have been looking at for nearly five years now indicate that artists, producers and record labels need a little more “respect for the game”. It’s not difficult to make an album. But to make even one song that a significant number of people genuinely care about enough to purchase is a monumental undertaking. Before you go marching into a war zone, have a plan, be realistic, and consider the costs. Let the revolution start there.

Ken Krongard is an A&R rep par excellence. His specialty—honed over decades of working with artists from Def Leppard to Avril Lavigne—is “to find superstars who can sell a lot of records.” Since 2001, Krongard has been taking an entrepreneur’s approach to making the most of this particular gift through the company he founded and now runs, Major Label Scout. Through Major Label Scout, Krongard maintains a network of 200 well-trained and dedicated talent scouts across North America, all scouring the basements and backstreets for the next big thing and queueing the best of the best for presentation to major label executives. And before those scouts hit the bricks in search of talent, they all go through an intensive training program run by Berkleemusic.

Multi-platinum artist Avril Lavigne and MLS Founder Ken Krongard

Krongard first hatched the idea for Major Label Scout in 2000 (before MySpace, before bittorrent), when he was working as an A&R rep at Arista Records. A contact outside Arista made him aware of a 17-year-old Canadian singer named Avril Lavigne. As Krongard tells it, “Avril was a girl in Napanee, Ontario, a town of 3000, who’d never played a real show, never had an album, never had a song on the radio. The only way to find her was by finding someone who knew her.” Krongard brought Lavigne to New York, where she impressed Arista head L.A. Reid into immediately signing her to a three-album deal.

The experience left Krongard convinced that unknown talent existed in other tiny towns across North America, and when he left Arista in 2001, he founded Major Label Scout to try and turn his idea into a sustainable business venture.

“[Major Label Scout] was an idea for a scouting network,” explains Krongard, “that was kind of a combination of an A&R community and a means of tapping into the talent of tastemaking young people who were looking for the next big thing, and who wanted to learn the A&R business from a mainstream major-label perspective. “I’m looking for a scout who knows everything that’s going on in his hometown,” explains Krongard. “And I want to know about the kid down the street in his basement with a ProTools rig who is a genius and who nobody knows about.”

This talent is discovered in a process that works like so: every scout must submit two songs by an unknown artist each review cycle (a period of about six weeks). An automated system then randomizes the tracks, and sends them to ten other scouts. These scouts listen to each track once anonymously, and then are given information about the artist so they can research further. Based on their findings and their opinion, the listeners then rate the tracks. These findings are aggregated into a chart which is then reviewed by senior staff The top-charting artists are then considered for management or publishing agreement with Major Label Scout itself, and shopped to the A&R departments of the major record companies.

MLS Recording Artist Joe Brooks (Lava/Universal), MLS Founder Ken Krongard and MLS Recording Artist Jason Reeves (Warner Bros.)

As it turns out, Krongard was right about where unknown talent was to be found. As with Avril Lavigne, Krongard’s goal was to find the talent anywhere, “even,” as he put it to a colleague, “in Iowa.” And on the very first chart report his scouts produced, the #2 artist was Jason Reeves, an Iowa musician who has gone on to multiplatinum success with his own records and as a songwriter for Colbie Caillat and others, as well as a record deal with Warner Bros. where he was signed by American Idol judge Kara Dioguardi.

Krongard is also sure to lavish as much attention on his scouts as they do on the music they champion. Many music companies are content to hire eager and inexperienced warm bodies and then wring every ounce of effort they can out of them, investing relatively little in the individual’s career growth and long-term prospects. By contrast, to become a Major Label Scout, applicants must submit an exhaustive six-page application and pass a grueling round of interviews, all designed to ensure that new hires have the drive, talent, and mindset to tirelessly seek out new mainstream talent. And before a new scout can hit the streets, they are sent through a training and orientation process that includes course content provided by Berkleemusic.

“I’ve done a lot of internships in my life,” explains Krongard, “and the best internships I’ve ever had were where I really learned something, so we wanted to make sure we gave our scouts a positive learning experience. We try to structure it so our scouts have access to something they don’t get anywhere else, and Berklee was part of that.”

“We thought about who these people are—the music executives of tomorrow—and felt it’s important that we give them guidance and information on the music business. So, where better to go than the #1 online music program? Fortunately, Berklee was very receptive to us and gave us some great content to build out the training system. That has been hugely helpful and the partnership just makes sense. A huge number of our scouts have gone on to take Berkleemusic classes, and it’s been a classic win-win.”

In fact, Krongard is quick to acknowledge that many of his scouts remain with Berkleemusic long past the required orientation phase. “Some of our scouts are really interested in A&R, but some people are just curious about the music business in general,” he says. “Berkleemusic exposes them to a number of different areas; after the introductory lessons… they can branch out and take classes on their own in the areas that benefit them most.”

Multi-platinum recording artist Colbie Caillat and MLS Founder Ken Krongard

In recent years, Major Label Scout has begun directly publishing and/or managing some of their finds, thereby diversifying their business from being a pass-through company funneling talent to labels, to being a revenue participant in some artists’ career. When asked why he chose to diversify, Krongard replies that “all the major companies, whether labels, management companies, live entertainment companies, are all morphing into all-around full-service companies. Whether the major labels in the future will still be called major labels or… just music companies, some are going to be bigger and more successful than others, and some are going to be smaller and make very fine livings at it.”

As for whether there will still be major labels in a few years for MLS to shop talent to, Krongard muses, “clearly the ascendency the major label has been over for a long time, but the ones that survive are the ones getting into other areas. One thing we’re all watching very carefully is how this 360-degree model plays out, where labels acquire all assets, not just recorded music assets but they now have revenue streams from publishing, merchandise, and touring and anything else. So in a sense the [major labels] are not really record companies anymore, because they’re not just about records, but about commissioning revenue from 360 degrees [of an artist’s output]. The ones that succeed are the ones that hire the right people, move into the right areas, and learn those areas the quickest. The ones that don’t do this will be gone.”

When asked where a company like Major Label Scouts fits into the future of the business, Krongard muses, “great talent is great talent—it just needs to be discovered. And I think that’s true now more than ever, since there’s a glut of artists; there are seven million bands on MySpace at last count. Someone’s got to go through them all and find the diamonds in the rough, and I still think the ability to perceive something special is a skill you can learn. There will always be a place for people that can discern talent, period. “

Moreover, says Krongard, it always makes good business sense to see out what millions of people want to buy, and remaining focused on that fact might just give Major Label Scouts an edge. “There seems to be this attitude in the music business where everyone tries to be cool,” he says, “where everyone tries to find the hippest band on Pitchfork on this week. But those bands come and go, and the people that love these artists tend to be on the poles of taste, and on the coasts. And there’s a huge market of people between the coasts who buy their music at Wal-Mart and think Nickelback is a great band. And you know what? Who are we to say that they’re wrong? Nickelback have sold millions and millions of albums.”

MLS Founder Ken Krongard, Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, MLS Recording Artist Joe Brooks (Lava/Universal)

“It’s music, and music is subjective, and I reject the argument that one person’s opinion is better than another person’s opinion. At the end of the day, Nickelback have sold a hell of a lot more records than name-your-hipster-band. As an A&R guy, my job has been to find artists that will sell. Whether or not people think they’re cool is not a problem for me. Everyone should fall in love with the music that reaches them, but in terms of the business itself, our approach is to find superstars who can sell a lot of records. And obviously in the new model, it’s not all about records, but we need to find superstars who are going to appeal to a massive audience.”

For the foreseeable future, the world will need large music companies, and Ken Krongard is betting that those companies will continue to need the services of Major Label Scout. By selecting the right people, and training them using Berkleemusic’s award-winning course materials, he hopes to give his scouts the edge they need to make that bet a certainty.

- John Owen

For this weeks post, I just wanted to let you all know that I finally received my pedalboard power supply. They are finally available!

It is called the Sanyo KBC-9V3U Pedal Juice—a pretty fancy name for something that does something so well and so simply.

This is one of those inventions that was sooo long overdue, one of those “Why didn’t someone think of that years ago?” kind of products.

And it works like a charm. It is a handsome little pedal slightly bigger than a phase 90 that charges in about 3.5 hours. This pedal keeps you free from wall-warts and batteries and extra things to plug in.

Also a plus, at little more than a 1/2 lb, this pedal weighs in at less than the average pedal, so no worries about adding too many extra pounds to your pedal-board.

While charging a small flashing LED informs you of the rate of progress:

Flashing RED: less than 30%
Flashing ORANGE: 30-60%
Flashing GREEN: 60% or more
LED OFF: Fully charged

When the power supply is being used to power your board, the light is steady but the RED ORANGE and GREEN colors indicate the same power status. It has a power switch that comes on with a touch, but needs to be held for a couple of seconds to switch off…no risk of accidental power downs with this bad boy! Well thought out.

So I am sure many of you have questions on how long the power supply will last…well it powered my small pedalboard (see Pedalboards Part 1 and Part 2) for a couple of practice sessions lasting a couple hours or so each, then for for a 6-7 hour recording session, and then a couple more days of practicing for a couple of hours before finally shutting down!…not bad in my book…here is a list that Sanyo provided of some devices and the approximate time that your Sanyo Eneloop pedal with provide power on a single charge.

Analog Effects: Distortion/Overdrive (10mA current draw) 50 hours
Digital Delay/Digital Reverb (50mA current draw) 27 hours
Digital Multiple Effects/mini amplifier/graphic digital multiple effects/graphic EQ (100mA draw) 17 hours
Muti-Trac recorder/synthesizer (300 mA draw) 7 hours
Electronic Drum/percussion instrument (1000mA draw) 2 hours

Powered by a Lithium-ion battery, the unit charges with a provided 5v power supply plugged into a dummy-proof input plug (no mixing up the 5v ins and the 9v outs here), and has 2- 9v center tip negative outputs to power your pedalboard.

The unit is not to be charged while supplying power to your pedalboard and when the output of the two 9v plugs exceeds 2A, the unit will shut down but that is quite a bit in pedal speak, so more than enough for most of us. And if needed, you can always have 2 to power an oversized board.

So there is a good amount of hi-tech safety in this product. Most importantly there is no memory issue with it, so no needing to drain fully before recharging etc etc . And, of course, the charge time will be less than the estimated 3.5 hours, if there is any residual power left from the last charge…

So charge up fully before each gig and you will be more than guaranteed good clean safe hum-free power through your show…and then maybe a (some) day(s) of rehearsing afterwards…of course, be careful to check the power reqs on your pedals before doing your show…I used mine at home for a few days before confidently taking it into a pro recording session. But it really did make everything much easier: just plug the amp in, and then the guitar into the pedals into the amp..no extra chords.

I am loving this pedal…it does everything I was trying to design into my prototype (see pictures of my home made rechargeable power supply) except it is a lot more hi-tech and certainly a lot prettier…

Check out the KBC-9V3U Pedal Juice on Sayno’s site.

Brian John is a Student Advisor at berkleemusic.com. He has a Bachelors in Piano Performance from Miami University of Ohio, and a Masters in Composition from Longy School of Music. Brian’s background is primarily in Classical music, but a 4 year stint in a home-grown jam band gives him a unique perspective on both genres. He continues to compose and perform for people across the US.

1. Agree on a goal: Having a well-defined goal is crucial to any collaboration. Whether you are forming a band, working with a lyricist, or hiring a publicist, everyone involved must be working towards the same vision. Before the collaboration begins, you yourself should have in place a solid idea of what you want to accomplish. Going into a collaboration with an unformed idea leaves you open to being hijacked by your partner(s) and their interpretation of your request. They may not realize that they are doing it, and you might not catch it at first, but nothing kills a collaboration quicker than realizing the project you end up working on is not the one you started out wanting to do.

2. Establish ground rules: How long should this project last? How should profits or proceeds be distributed? How should the division of responsibilities be handled? Should any additional people be recruited to help and, if so, who decides when/how they are brought on-board? The list of potentially contestable issues that could arise is too long to be published here, and I would most likely miss many important points. The thing to take away from this step is to think ahead, and anticipate conflict. I’m not saying you need a formal contract, but by agreeing to ground rules, you set yourself and your collaborators up for a successful and open relationship. Also, by discussing and establishing these ground rules, you learn a lot more about your partner(s) than you would otherwise—you may get to this step and realize that the person you are talking with is not the right one for your project. That’s ok! It’s better to find this out now and keep looking then to try and force things along with the wrong people. I liken it to putting one square tire on a hotrod—it ruins the entire machine. This brings us to step three:

3. Pick the right partner(s): This is, perhaps, the most difficult step in the collaborative process. I must admit, my first instinct is to reach out to my immediate circle of friends when I get a new idea, need a second point of view, or need someone with a particular skill set. This is self-defeating in two very major ways. The first is that you have a pre-existing relationship. This makes establishing ground rules and agreeing on a goal particularly difficult, as you are more likely to compromise your vision. Think about how many times a friend has talked you into doing something that you’re not entirely comfortable with. Now imagine that, instead of that extra drink at the bar, you’ve agreed to alter a portion of your project that can affect your entire musical career. Secondly, by recruiting your immediate friends and acquaintances, you limit your connections. The music business is all about fostering relationships, and meeting new people. Collaborations are one of the best ways to self-promote, but it does no good to show off your skills, ingenuity, and drive to the people who already know you! Ask your social network, reach out to friends of friends, join a local musician’s group—any of these options will allow you to meet new people and make new connections.

4. Begin: I know, this one is obvious. However, I can count on both hands the truly successful collaborations that I have completed. These are exactly equal to the number of collaborations that I have started. On the flip side, I have a drawer full of ideas half-formed and filed away for “another time”. I have logged hundreds of hours discussing potential projects with potential collaborators. All of your work on steps one through three are for naught if you and your group never take the first step. It’s scary, it’s nerve-wracking, but by following these steps you give yourselves a much higher percentage of success. You have a shared vision, you have a structured working environment, you have the right people by your side—now get out there and start doing what you love!

As we have seen, there are many different ways to make money in music today. In the past few years, much has been said and written about the 360 degree deal, where an artist/writer enters into a business partnership with…

The music business of the past was driven by a relatively small number of people who controlled the distribution channels, the marketing channels (radio) and the financing available to artists and writers.  If you knew one of these mavens or…

I’m excited to tell you that our kids/family music group “Debbie and Friends” has been nominated to the top 5 for the Nickelodeon Parents’ Pick Award for Kids’ CD of the Year! WE NEED YOUR VOTES TO WIN!

Please click the link below to register to vote. You can vote once a day through Aug. 30!

Nominated for best kids’ music cd. Vote now!

To hear the music, please visit

Debbie and Friends is a kids/family music project I started a few years ago. The project has grown and it’s been great fun and extremely rewarding. The concerts are all about interacting with the kids and families at our shows. The following is a “thank you” slideshow I put together for our fan families to show my appreciation for their support. They are at the heart of our success. I think the same keepsake can be done for fans of any genre.

What kinds of memory keepsakes have you put together for your band’s fanbase?

Ah, let me lift this heavy oak lid on my treasure chest, the Bonzai Vault. What have we here? An interview with Leonard Cohen at his LA home in 1988. This photo was taken on my second visit, when I interviewed his engineer Leann Ungar in his adjacent private studio in 2002.

Always the gentleman, Leonard prepared an excellent pot of coffee for our conversation.

Here is a bit of the intro:

Let’s set the record straight, once and for all, about this Leonard Cohen. Seems to me that most folks think of him as a dark, brooding, melancholic, depressing fella. Actually, he’s a very funny guy. True, it ain’t the light humor of Sam Kineson or Don Rickles, but if you’re willing to follow him deeply down Dante’s staircase you’ll find the chuckles that echo through the nuthouses and whorehouses of antiquity.

How many characters like Leonard Cohen exist? He’s a songwriter, a poet, a novelist, a painter, and a sharp dresser, too. Onstage, backed by superb musicians both modern and ethnic, with sultry sirens accompanying him like loving ex-lovers, Leonard hangs loose in film noir duds and sings his hard-boiled narratives, sketching underworld scenes with shady undertones and witty asides.

for the full interview in PDF form, click Cohen_Leonard_1988MrB.

Julia Polanco is a Student Advisor at Berkleemusic.com. A Berklee College of Music graduate (Professional Music major and Voice principal), Julia has worked as a vocal coach in Los Angeles with Interscope Records, and as a lead and background singer, voiceover artist, and vocal coach in the US and Europe. Now in Boston, Julia currently performs as a lead singer with a high profile cover band, teaches voice privately, and writes and performs with an original band. Check out her website at juliasimonemusic.com.

As musicians, producers, performers, songwriters, or composers, it doesn’t matter how amazing you are, you need to know how to promote yourselves and how to network! The old days of having to be signed by a label to be heard beyond your own city’s limits are long gone. Things are different now. The tools are out there for independent artists to use, and most of them are free.

If it is viral—it will spread! I’m stating the obvious here, but instead of thinking about it in the figurative sense, apply this concept to your career. The internet has made networking very easy to do. It doesn’t matter where you are anymore, now you can reach out to pretty much anyone around the world.

I would start by recommending the obvious: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and MyspaceMusic. Many people use these sites for personal (and sometimes overly dramatic) content, but you can use it in a smart, original, and professional way. Major record labels use interns 24/7 to update statuses, post comments, reach out to fans, and tweet on behalf of their artists. You can approach it in the same way, no matter how “big” you are.

Here are great examples of how other musicians are making the most of these free social media sites:

YouTube: Karmin is engaging fans in a smart and original way with quality homemade videos of their original songs and covers. The perk with YouTube searches is that fans of the artists that you cover will find your videos while searching for their favorite tunes. Once captivated by the cover, the audience will then get to know your original music! Karmin’s latest video post already had over 13,000 views just over a week! http://www.youtube.com/karmintube

Twitter: Debbie and Friends – Debbie tweets about her concerts, radio shows, new videos, blog posts, and collaborations. Twitter is a professional, concise, and a perfect way to get your fans’ attention, let them know you, and expose them to all other media that you use on the web. http://twitter.com/DebbieCavalier

Myspace: Midatlantic uses MyspaceMusic to its fullest. On one page, you have an actual press kit with videos, music, bio, reviews, upcoming shows, contact information, and pictures. You can also see their fan base and buy their music, too. It’s ideal for musicians! http://www.myspace.com/midatlantictheband

Facebook: Dear Havannah plays it smart on Facebook. They make it personal yet keep it professional. Their wall is completely dedicated to their fans. Each post lets you know them as a band and as individual musicians. It’s a smart way to keep your fans engaged in what you do and to stay approachable. http://www.facebook.com/DearHavanah

Basically no matter what you do, keep it real, simple and network as much as possible. If you can think of a reference in regards to online networking or if you want to share your own don’t hesitate to post your comments below!

I don’t usually get too personal in this blogspace– but I thought this week I’d offer up a quick excerpt from Chapter One of the Eric Beall biography for which absolutely no one is waiting (and which happily, no one is actually writing).

The story begins just before I graduated from Berklee College of Music, when, like most graduates everywhere, I was searching out possible job opportunities with a mixture of anticipation, excitement, ignorance and desperation. While I didn’t know much about what I was doing, at least I knew enough to be reading Billboard regularly, and that was where I happened on an article about a young whiz-kid named Tom Silverman, who was the founder of Tommy Boy Records, one of the seminal record labels in the history of hip-hop.

Riding high off the success of “Planet Rock” at Tommy Boy, Tom was quickly emerging as an industry leader, having also co-founded the New Music Seminar. Based in NYC, this conference was at the epicenter of a wave of new music taking shape in the early 1980s, it was where new wave and punk rock, hip-hop and electronic dance music all met and mingled, with hundreds of new artists, indie label owners, A&R people, press and other entrepreneurs plotting out their path into the industry.

The article I read about Tom Silverman concerned his plans to launch an industry group called “The Independent Label Coalition”, which was intended to be a trade group controlled by independent labels from across genres. The hope was that by working together to improve the business environment in the independent music world, the ILC could increase the ability of these smaller companies to compete with the major labels that dominated the industry. At the end of the Billboard interview, Tom pointedly mentioned that he was looking for volunteers– and I quickly reached out to be in contact.

Tom Silverman, from Tommy Boy Records and the New Music Seminar

To me, The Independent Label Coalition seemed like an ideal opportunity to meet people in the music business, learn about the industry, and hopefully build relationships that would result in gainful employment. To Tom, my willingness to volunteer undoubtedly confirmed yet again one of his pet theories, that in the music business, there was always a young kid who would work for free just for the chance to be involved. Happily, I did manage to meet Tom shortly thereafter, and was given a small role in the Independent Label Coalition.

I moved to New York from Boston in the middle of July, 1984, dropped my still-packed boxes in my tiny apartment, and immediately reported for duty at the New Music Seminar, where the Independent Label Coalition was officially being launched. I helped to check people in for the conference; I stood for endless hours at the ILC booth in the exhibit hall; I worked the door at Studio 54, where the Independent Label Coalition had a kick-off party. I was yelled at by Bob Krasnow (the head of Elektra Records); I screwed up most of what I touched; I tried to network in rooms of hundreds of people where I didn’t know a soul. But I also met dozens of new entrants in the music business sweepstakes, saw early performances from artists that ranged from the Beastie Boys to Run DMC to RuPaul to Madonna (check out the video below), and sat in dozens of panels where I learned the realities of how our industry is structured. Thanks to Tom Silverman and the New Music Seminar, I suddenly entered the music business, and I’ve been fortunate enough to remain there ever since.

The Independent Label Coalition didn’t actually work out very well– the idea of coordinating activities among indie record labels, made up of some of the most defiantly “independent” personalities in the world, proved to be a little Utopian for the real world. To me, it didn’t much matter. The ILC did exactly what I needed it to do, which was to give me my first network of friends, supporters and mentors in the music industry. In fact, many of those people I still maintain relationships with today, more than twenty years later. One of the leaders of the ILC was David Renzer, who at the time was a successful songwriter and producer. David went on to become the head of Zomba Music Publishing, where he wound up signing me to my first publishing deal. Now, David is the worldwide president of Universal Music Publishing. Another early compatriot from the ILC days was Duncan Hutchison, who became the president of Caroline Records, and is now the Chief Content Officer of RightsFlow, the licensing organization.

The ILC also introduced me to to a wide group of record industry entrepreneurs, including Eddie O’Loughlin at Next Plateau Records, who continues to be a colleague and mentor to me, Sergio Cossa, for whom Shapiro Bernstein, the company where I work now, administers the Emergency Music catalog, and of course, the illustrious Tom Silverman.

To bring this story to a well-crafted and slightly ironic conclusion, it turns out that Tom Silverman, along with my friend David Lory, one of the industry’s most creative and forward-looking executives, has now relaunched the New Music Seminar. After concluding in 1995, the New Music Seminar was brought back to life in 2009.

Dave Lory, New Music Seminar

As it turns out, I’ll be participating in NMS 2010, being held July 19-21st in New York. I’ll be promoting my books, “Making Music Make Money” and “The Billboard Guide To Writing and Producing Songs That Sell”, as well as my new consulting service, “Ask The Music Business Weasel”. If you can be in or around New York during this time, I strongly urge you to be a part of this conference, which is all about uncovering new paradigms and business models for success in today’s music business. And if you’re there, please find me and say hello. I’m looking forward to signing some books, chatting a bit, and being part of an event that played a key role in my own development as a songwriter, producer and executive.

http://www.newmusicseminar.com

Contrary to what many believe, the music business is not really such a tough thing to break into. There are no entrance exams, no licenses to obtain, and far less financial commitment than in almost any other business (have you ever thought what it would cost you to get into the restaurant business, or steel-manufacturing?).

Even better, there are hundreds of organizations, societies, conferences, and trade groups to help you start your network. The New Music Seminar is one of many such points of entry. All you have to do is show up, start learning how the industry works, and make some friends. It worked for me. I’ll hope to see you there…

Please vote for my remix at indabamusic by clicking on the widget below, and ask all of your friends to vote for me too. Voting goes until July 15, 2010. And, if you send me to London I promise to bug Gabriel for all of his best production tricks so that I can bring them back here and share them with all of you.

As a rule, I don’t generally have time to enter the many amazing remix contests offered on indbamusic.com. But, this time, I couldn’t pass up a chance to remix a classic Peter Gabriel song, “Games Without Frontiers”. And, more importantly, a chance to have Gabriel listen to my work and maybe even meet him in London! That’s just to cool of an opportunity to pass up. With everything that Gabriel has done in his life, both musically and as a philanthropist, he’s definitely a hero of mine. So, I went for it.

Remixing is a form of music production. Just like producing a song for an artist, the object shouldn’t be about imposing your musical ideas on another musician’s composition and performance. Instead, it’s about helping the artist and their material to be the best that they can be. To this end, I think it’s important to respect the songwriter’s original message and the vocalist’s performance when remixing, especially when the vocalist is the songwriter. Ideally, the recognizable elements of the song, such as vocal phrases and guitar lines, should be audible in your remix. With this in mind, I felt “Games Without Frontiers” could benefit from a more guitar-driven, pop rock arrangement, with a full kit played over an updated Roland CR-78 drum loop, and a touch of orchestral elements for added texture and movement.

In these videos, I take you on a mini tour of my “Games Without Frontiers” remix session using Pro Tools and Reason. There’s a lot to explain in this session, so I broke the tour into two videos. The first focuses on drums and rhythm section instruments (bass, guitars, piano, etc.). And, the second focuses on orchestral elements, voice parts (lead and backing vocals), and mastering. I’m also attaching the Pro tools session file, without its audio files, to this blog so that you can look through the session and see how it’s all set up.

Peter Gabriel Remix Session Video Tour (Part 1)

Peter Gabriel Remix Session Video Tour (Part 2)

*Remember, you can double click on these videos and watch them directly on YouTube to see them in HD. The session file as a Zip.
PG REMIX VIDEO TOUR
Download directions:
Right-click PC and from the pop-up menu choose, “Save Link as…”
Control-click Mac and from the pop-up menu choose, “Save Link as…”

Performers! Have you ever found yourself in a position where you thought perhaps that show was not going to go on? I experienced this for the first time last week, just minutes before a Debbie & Friends concert for 200 families with young children in the Greater Boston area.

The band and I were set up and ready to perform as a major thunderstorm rolled through the area. Minutes before the downbeat, two telephone poles in front of the building were struck by lightning and fell over. As the families started to arrive, we heard a loud “POP” and the power went out in the entire neighborhood! The theater became dark and the sound system was down for the count.

The event coordinators talked of rescheduling, but as each minute passed more and more families arrived. We knew we had to figure something out. We couldn’t disappoint all of those kids. (Many our devoted fans wearing their Debbie & Friends concert t-shirts!)

Thankfully, we found a large classroom in the building with a piano and some natural light. Our guitarist grabbed his acoustic, and we all squeezed into the classroom together for a fun (and sweaty) sing along. We all had a great time and the families were most appreciative.

I related this story to my good friend and colleague Jonathan Feist, and he shared a simiar experience:

“I was once at a wedding where they lost power, but the band was ready with a whole set of unplugged songs, including some accompanied by just clapping along, with no instruments. It was great. They were total pros.”

Do you have a story related to this as a performer or concert goer? What are some things bands should do to make sure “the show will go on” when lightning strikes, or some other unforeseen circumstance gets in the way?

This post I will discuss some of the whys and wonders of the non-buffered effects loop. If any of you want to chime in with more in the way of technical details, etc, please feel free to add comments, it will be helpful for those who need to hear more about dB’s and volts.

For the most part, I will keep this post in layman’s terms…best for me too, because when I start trying to rap my brain around some of this stuff, I get a headache! Just wanna play my guitar…

So here is the scenario: You finally get your D-style (or otherwise) amp and you might have opted out of the reverb option or the buffered effects loop (pedal level) due to the additional expense.

However when you plug your pedals into the non-buffered loop, the amp sounds anemic, low in volume and you dreams of a sprinkling of cool effects on your expensive investment, seem to fall short of  tonal heaven.

Then someone comes and tells you about a device called a Dumble-ator, or clone thereof, such as a Loop-a-lator by Bludotone, or the Kleinu-lator by Ceriatone, or the ELI 1/2 by Two Rock.

Well these units for sure will remedy the problem. But that means another piece of gear that you have to carry around, to your gigs more power chords to plug in to AC, more 1/4 inch plugs to plug in (twice!)  to the amp and then a few more knobs to tweak. NO MORE KNOBS… Arrrrrghgggh!!

Then someone else tell you they just use pedals through the front of the amp that will work great….What? Why? Which?

First off, most of these hi-end Dumble amps and clones come standard with a passive, +4 signal level effects loop.

In layman’s terms (based on information that my engineer copied and emailed to me after my begging for simplicity on the subject!)  +4 is the “pro” signal level – the level that high quality units expect to see, otherwise referred to as “line level”. Cable connectors for this type of signal are usually XLR (like mic cables) or TRS – which are like guitar cables except they have Tip/Ring/Sleeve balanced connection (an extra stripe on the plug) as opposed to instrument cables which are usually just Tip-Sleeve and unbalanced.

The alternative to +4 level is -10, which is the consumer or semi-pro standard. These connections are almost always unbalanced, and you need to maintain shorter cable lengths to avoid hum, buzz, radio interference, and signal degradation -  compared to good balanced line level cables (+4) can be run for a couple of hundred feet. The connectors on -10 equipment are either 1/4″ guitar/instrument cables, or RCA plugs and jacks (like you see on a home stereo). Note that on many of these D-clones, the effects loop, even though it is +4 line level, will often have simple 1/4 inch guitar jacks for ins and outs. This is still compatible with the effect unit, even the the effect unit might have the TRS (ring-tip-sleeve). Both have 1/4″ guitar jack connections.

So in a nutshell, if you use a guitar level pedal (unbalanced) with your D-Style effects loop, there is a mismatch in signal level, hence the anemic tone that you might experience. What is the solution?? Well… there is the Dumble-ator, or clone thereof, of which we spoke earlier. This device, about the size of a single space rack unit or smaller, is the missing link that will correct this signal level disparity and restore your full tone. Depending on the model, it might also allow you to add in the appropriate and matched level of effect in parallel.

These loop devices essentially allow you to match the signal of the output and input of your amplifier effects loop with the signal of the effect device that you are using, whether balanced or unbalanced, +4 or -10. Of course, if the effects unit that you are using has the line level option, then you probably do not need them! (Unless you like the extra work of pluggin stuff in and having and more knobs and  stuff to tweak!)

An amp that comes with a buffered effects loop, essentially has a built in Dumble-ator or maybe it is the other way around…a dumble-ator is essentially the workings of an amp that make the loop “buffered” except it exists outside of the amp. hmmmm….I guess the reasons for this unit being separate might be a few…

a) amp is cheaper and possibly quicker to make (some of these boutique babies have 2-3 year or more waiting lists!!
b) less “stuff in the amp, so it can be smaller and lighter, and in simple terms, less complicated technically, maybe even a little quieter.
c) If you are going to be using hi-quality studio grade +4 effects, a buffered loop it is really not needed.
d) Certain effects (other than delay and reverb) can simply go through the front of the amp, especially if your amp does not have an OD switchable channel

Most floor guitar effect pedals run inputs and outputs at the unbalanced level.  And today most effects loops on non-boutique/mainstream amps are buffered. However, increasingly,  we are finding manufacturers catering to the avid, growing population of folks owning high end boutique amps that come ready with a +4 loop, ready for studio hi-quality studio grade effects.

TC Electronics seems to be on the wave of this trend with products such as their Nova System and Nova Repeater pedals. (Click on the images below to enlarge.)

Some other boutique manufacturers such as Fuchs also create some options for +4 effect loopers. Andy Fuchs makes a very interesting pedal called a Verbrator which has High Quality Tube Reverb along with what amounts to a built in tube (Dumble-ator) effects loop. This comes in a relatively small pedal sized packaged. Check this one out if you get a minute.

There are many rack units that offer this option, and few floor pedals that do. If there are any of you that are hip to any other high quality floor pedal manufacturers that are offering the line-level option, please list in the comments section of this post. I like small, light and not too many knobs!!

Now some of you might be just thinking well why not just plug in through the front of the amp? Why not use whatever effects you have after the guitar before the amp.

Well, the answer to that is…hmmm..why not? Well I guess the most appropriate place for certain types of effects is after the preamp and tone-stack and before the power amp (Through the effects loop). If your amp has an OD channel, as do most D-Style amps, and you plug your delay through the front of the amp, when you hit your OD footswitch you will be OD-ing your delay sound…Well…that can be an interesting effect, but most agree that delay will sound better AFTER the signal has been overdriven. Effects such as delay, reverb sound best through the loop.

If your amp does not have an OD channel, the placement of effects in the chain, might be a little less crucial, since you are probably either turning up and cranking the amp or maybe using an overdrive pedal or boost to get your “up to eleven” sound.

I will say that I think a high quality effect unit, whether reverb, delay or otherwise (or some combination of these) sounds HEAVENLY through a +4 effects loop. Essentially there is no added noise and your amp will take on a 3-D quality.

Depending on your set up and pedal choices, it might makes sense to get a buffered effects loop at the time of purchase of your D-Style amp. It will probably add expense and a little weight to your rig.

Many manufacturers of these D-Clone babies don’t offer the buffered loop as an option. My personal optimal preference might be to just use this +4 effects loop with an effect that is hi-quality line level. Seems that way you carry the least amount of stuff to the gig.  (Especially considering more pedal manufacturers are making this line level an option on their pedals, sometimes with just a flick of a switch.)

Please share your thoughts and experiences with this… Happy Looping!

I wrote a course for Berkleemusic called Online Music Marketing with Topspin, which starts this Monday, June 28.

My friend Peter Brambl at Topspin put together a post that details a few examples of the work some of the course graduates have been involved in. Take a look:

Crush Luther

Sheila Hash has been using Topspin to set up what she calls “The Living Room Sessions” for artist Crush Luther.  “Basically, you can request the band play your living room,” says Shelia.  “You need to send pictures of the space and guarantee that at least 20 people will show up. We set up a private ticket link on Topspin and every ticket purchase gets a hard copy of the album upon arrival to the show. It’s been highly successful and the band is booked at various houses throughout the summer. They love it because it’s much more intimate and interactive than a regular show. “
http://www.crushluther.com/

Jonesez

Annmarie McMath is kickstarting a fan acquisition project for artist Jonesez.  “The course was instrumental in not only honing my online marketing skills but educating my artist on best practices for social media marketing and direct-to-fan initiatives,” says Annmarie.  “We have had a steady intake of sign ups, and social media interaction is increasing. We have received a stack of great feedback from fans, musicians and others in the industry..and of course the widgets and music players have been a hit too. Thanks Topspin & Berklee.”
http://www.jonesez.com.au

Brandon Hines

Dan Conway is applying his marketing skills to student projects at Drexel University as well as his own record imprint:  “With our latest release on Drexel’s student run record label (called MAD Dragon Records), we utilized Topspin in creating a new website for the band (streaming player, mailing list, store functionality, etc.) as well as marketing the album using techniques covered in the course. Next year, I plan on incorporating Topspin into the everyday classroom through courses like Marketing and Promotion in the Music Industry and E-commerce in the Music Industry. I will also use it as our direct to fan platform for every Drexel released artist.  Along with my work at the university, I have applied the knowledge at my own record label, Revel Music Group. We used Topspin to release a free promotional “mixtape” for an R&B artist, Brandon Hines, that we have signed. We were able to grow his mailing list from 0 to over 5,300 in a few months (and still acquiring an additional 100 per week) using the email for media widget to exchange 10 free tracks for an email address. We continue to view Topspin as a large piece of the puzzle in both our distribution and marketing strategy and plan to incorporate it into all future releases.
http://maddragon.ning.com/
http://brandonhinesmusic.com/

Soul Mekanik

Ian Clifford is applying the best practices from the course to the marketing of online stores for artist Soul Mekanik. “I had some internet marketing experience already, but I had never applied it in an indie basis,” says Ian. “I learned about the process from the course. In six weeks we have added 600 fans to the email list.”
http://www.soulmekanik.com

Sign up for Online Music Marketing with Topspin, get your own hands dirty with the tools, and send me your success stories to feature next term!

It seems almost cruel to kick a company when they’re down and gasping for a final breath, but the news from EMI Music just keeps getting more and more bizarre. Only 10 weeks after naming Charles Allen the executive chairman of EMI Music (he replaced Elio Leoni-Scelti, who himself lasted only 18 months), Terra Firma announced that the head of EMI Music Publishing, Roger Faxon, would be replacing Allen, taking over the helm at EMI Music (the record division) as well. Even by music industry standards, that’s an amazing bit of turnover– Allen has gone from executive chairman to a vaguely defined “adviser” role in less than one financial quarter. It’s like watching a bit of time-lapse photography, where a process of destruction that usually takes a year and a half has been condensed into 10 weeks.

And all of this is meant to reassure the investors.

Roger Faxon, Chief Executive EMI Group

The real irony is that after three years of completely inept decision-making, Terra Firma is actually making a pretty good call on this one. At least Faxon has a genuine understanding of the business. While he didn’t build EMI into an industry-leading publisher (that was the work of Marty Bandier, who is now at Sony ATV), he has maintained the company’s status despite the ever-present rumors of the corporate parent’s financial demise. EMI Music Publishing still has one of the strongest executive teams in the business, a catalog full of classic songs, and a current writer roster that made it the Publisher of the Year once again at this year’s ASCAP Pop Awards. The obvious strategy here is to try to use the strength of the publishing company to shore up the weakness of the recorded music division. It makes pretty good sense… on paper.

For reasons that are fathomable only to the executives that run major media companies like Universal, Warner, Sony and EMI, none of the major music companies have ever managed to create any relationship between their record companies and their associated publishing companies. There are remarkably few acts that are signed both to Warner Bros. Records and Warner Chappell, or to Sony ATV and Columbia Records. In fact, the relationship between many of these publishing companies and their affiliated labels is downright hostile. At Sony ATV, I was well-aware that many top-level A&R people at Columbia and Epic were steering their new acts to EMI Music Publishing, convinced that the artist would get more money and promotional support at that company than at Sony ATV. Likewise, EMI Music Publishing has made no secret over the years of their disdain for the hapless label that shares their name.

Some of the hostility can be attributed to executive envy, political gamesmanship, and the general corporate tendency to put one’s personal bonus ahead of the interest of the company itself. Some of it comes from the fact that many of the publishing companies and their associated labels have very different histories, areas of specialization, and financial means. To call the relationships “dysfunctional” would be something of an understatement.

Not too surprisingly, in the world of independent music companies, the idea of having a label and publishing company cooperate for the greater good has been far less elusive. In fact, many of the great success stories among independent labels have been built around the idea of record company and publishing company working together– from Motown Records and Jobete Music, to A&M Records and Almo-Irving Music, to Jive Records and Zomba Music, to Disney Records and publishing. It’s not terribly tricky. It simply means that the record label either strongly encourages or demands that their artists make a publishing deal with the related company, and likewise, the publishing company tries to keep any new talent they discover or hit songs generated by their writers “in house”, by bringing them to the associated record company.

So the idea now being put forward by Roger Faxon and the string-pullers at Terra Firma, to use EMI Music Publishing to bolster the fortunes of EMI Records, is not a crazy one, even if it’s relatively untried at a major music company level. I can almost understand how the non-music business weasels within Terra Firma could see this as the last best hope– and could have great expectations for the power of the two companies when finally brought together. It certainly won’t be the first time during their grand experiment in the music industry that Terra Firma has had their hopes dashed, though it may be the last time.

As obvious as the idea to unite the two companies sounds, it’s about ten or fifteen years too late. At this point, with EMI in such precarious condition, it’s almost impossible to see how this plays out. Most top artists with any other options would be understandably hesitant to sign to EMI Records right now, and quite frankly, it is probably not the first place that anyone from EMI Music Publishing would recommend for their artists. The publishing company needs its top writers, artists and producers to focus on creating the biggest hits possible, regardless of which label they happen to be released on.

Even if EMI Music Publishing were to encourage their top new artists to consider going to EMI Records, many are under contract with other labels for years to come, or are signed to production companies with ties to other companies, or have managers with relationships at other organizations. To create any real synergy between the two divisions is probably a five-year program, even in a best-case scenario.

Best-case scenarios have not served Terra Firma well. Indeed, the real problem with its buyout of EMI and the subsequent meltdown that followed has been a simple case of unrealistic expectations, which when unrealized, only increased the need for greater miracles in the next financial quarter. The ultimate result of this is the kind of ridiculous game of CEO musical chairs that we see now, where each new person is brought in with high hopes and a touted “turn-around” plan, only to find themselves doing a disappearing act as soon as the “turn-around” doesn’t turn out as planned. Every business should challenge its leaders to do the very best they can do. But if you challenge people to do the impossible, you will inevitably be disappointed. If you bet on them doing the impossible, you will not only be disappointed– you’ll be broke.

Terra Firma CEO Guy Hands

From the moment that Terra Firma purchased EMI in 2007 for the wildly inflated price of $4.7 billion dollars, they put themselves in a corner from which they can never escape. The loans that made that purchase possible were made on earnings expectations that were unrealistic for any music company in the present business climate, especially a company that was hardly a market leader even three years ago. In order to make the interest payments on those loans, Terra Firma now needs EMI to generate income at a level that is simply not possible for a music company in this environment.

If you try to drive a Volkswagen in the Indy 500, it won’t win the race– even if you press the gas pedal to the floor and keep it there. It’s not that it’s a bad car. It was never built to run that way. Further, if you insist on trying to do it, you’ll eventually ruin the engine– all because your expectations were not remotely in keeping with what the automobile was designed to do. EMI has plenty of talented, dedicated people in its offices around the world. It’s not inherently a bad organization. But music companies are not investment banks or oil companies. They don’t generate that level of cash. If you try to force them to do it, you’ll wind up cutting the creative experimentation you need, taking dangerous chances on high-priced “sure things”, demoralizing your staff, and draining your most productive assets to pay for your least-productive ones.

As remote as the problems of EMI might seem, the lesson of unrealistic expectations is one worth keeping in mind, even for individual songwriters and entrepreneurs entering the publishing game. As Andre de Raaff, the CEO of Imagem Music once sagely pointed out to me in a discussion about the disappointment of many investment firms who recently acquired publishing catalogs– music publishing is indeed a relatively steady business, but only over the course of about ten years.

When looked at over a decade, most established music publishing catalogs tend to hold their value and provide a relatively predictable rate of return. But within that ten year period, there can be wild swings in income from one year to the next. Currency fluctuations, copyright lawsuits, split disputes, hit songs or big flops can cause unexpected spikes or dips in the financial picture. Should you happen to buy into a catalog during the wrong three or four year period, you could easily panic when you don’t see the results you expected. If you can’t afford to wait it out for ten years, at which point the good and bad times will probably even each other out, you risk taking a sizable loss on your investment.

For those starting up a company, that means that you need to have a clear, level-headed understanding of the risks involved, the potential profits, and the time-frame in which you expect to see some action. Here are three rules to keep in mind that should help you avoid the dangers of great expectations:

1. Don’t buy anything based on what it could be.

The music business is built on dreams of endless potential. Every catalog you will ever be offered for purchase will be “full of undiscovered hits that have never been recorded!”. Every songwriter you consider signing will be on the verge of becoming the next big thing. Every cut you get will be under consideration to be the next single. None of it means anything.

Of course, all of it is possible–and hopefully one of the acts or songs you sign will turn out to be wildly successful. But you don’t do the deal based on that expectation. You negotiate the price based on what something is earning now (if it’s an established artist or catalog) or on a very conservative estimate of what it could do (for new artists or songs). You don’t plan for success. Plan for slow and steady growth, and make your financial decisions based on those plans. Then be surprised by success.

2. Don’t look for a quick money.

There isn’t any. All money in music publishing comes through the proverbial pipeline– a CD is sold at a retailer, who pays the distribution company which then pays the label which then pays Harry Fox or the equivalent which then pays the music publisher. Most of the time, that process takes somewhere between a year and a year and a half– longer than that for international royalties. Performance money is somewhat quicker, but still at least 9 months from when a song is on the radio. This is why songwriters want advances from publishers– because it’s very easy to find yourself starving, even while you’re hearing your song on the Top Forty countdown.

If you sign a new writer with an advance, no matter how minimal, it’s very unlikely that you will recoup that advance within the first year. Even if the songwriter is able to write a song in the first week of the deal, and you’re able to get the song picked up by an A&R person in the first month, it will still take three to six months for the artist to record it and release it, and another month and a half before it starts to impact at radio. It’s almost impossible that the money for that airplay or sales will show up in your coffers before the end of the first contract period. When it comes to signing and developing songwriters, you have to be willing to stay in the deal for at least a couple of years in order to get your money back.

3. Desperation is dangerous.

Decisions only get harder when you’re desperate. If you need to show results quickly, you will take foolish chances, be too aggressive, overpay for deals, or put too much pressure on the songwriters signed to you.
If you’re trying to stave off financial disaster, you’ll make budget cuts that will impair your ability to find new acts, drop unrecouped songwriters too soon, and sell off songs or catalogs at a fraction of their real value.

The music biz is a risk-taking business– but in order to take risks intelligently, you need a solid, supportive environment in which to work. That means enough capital in the business to survive while you’re waiting for your pipeline to come in, low overheads that can be covered by slow and steady growth, and enough patience and belief from your partners or investors that you are able to follow your instincts, and even make a few mistakes along the way.

A little more than a month ago, when Terra Firma was desperately trying to raise funds from its investors to stave off a Citibank takeover of EMI, they trotted out the new CEO at the time, Charles Allen, and announced that Allen would be unveiling “the new plan” to turn EMI from investment bust to boom. It was hard not to feel badly for the new leader, who was essentially being asked to create a fantasy picture in which everyone’s expectations would eventually be met, even as everyone knew that this was a completely unlikely scenario. As it turns out, he didn’t stick around long enough to even initiate the plan. And now there’s a new dream on the table.

As my father in law likes to say, you can’t teach a pig to fly. Trying will only frustrate you, and annoy the pig. Keep your expectations in line with reality, and you’ll have a far greater chance at not only meeting them, but maybe even exceeding them.