The Top 7 Mistakes That Indies Make.
Cats: Music Culture, Music Production, Music Promotion|
By James Pew
Living under a rock with a windless sail…So many indies are doing just that. Sadly, I share the blame.
The Net is the very best thing that has ever happened to everybody but superstars. Bob Lefsetz
It is becoming clearer all the time that music’s future home is the Internet. Social Networking and this weird web 2.0 concept have elevated our entire musical culture to something different, and dare I say…cool! Just when you thought that modern music, so often misunderstood or regarded as uncool, was stagnant – we now are standing at the brink of passing cool entirely, and moving to something quite possibly Way Beyond Cool!
I’ve already talked about the revolution of indie music production and a few of its problems – that was much easier for me having so many emotions regarding production value and the loudness issue. But because I spend so much time in the studio, I was in serious need of crawling out from under that rock, and taking a closer look at the social networking movement, and the so-called new paradigm of the music business. I meet a lot of indies still living under self-made rocks.
I’m convinced there has never been a better time for independent artists. The general public is hungry for quality musical content, and there seems to be an endless amount of hard working talented people making great music. Musical activity is massive.
Our studio regularly works with amazing local talent. This month we had blues guitarist Darran Poole of 2008 Juno Awarding winning band Fat Head and internationally acclaimed trumpeter Brownman, in the studio. Darran played guitar and fiddle on the upcoming full-length release of the Gary Kendall Band. An inspiring and treasured figure of Toronto’s vibrant blues scene, Gary Kendall is a seven-time Maple Blues bass player of the year award recipient, and Juno nominee with the legendary Down Child Blues Band. Other local greats appearing on Gary’s release include Suzie Vinnick, and a handful of past and present Down Child alumni. Its also worth mentioning that this years winner of the Maple Blues new talent award, the Douglas Watson Rhythm & Blues Revue, are currently tracking at Euphonic Sound. Other roots genres are just as alive with zillions of indie roots muso’s possessing loads of talent. Then of course, we have popular forms like rock and country and urban. We see overwhelming amounts of indie talent in these genres as well. Music is alive and well and in a steady state of growth. Mainstream circles will try to convince you otherwise but to most of us indie music participants, and many fans as well, the mainstream is not on our radar.
Most Indies I work with are making great sounding records, delivering exceptional live performances, and seem to be making good use of internet tools on the promotion/networking side. However, many are making mistakes. When a self-producing and self-managing indie artist makes a decision, we have to respect that they know whats best for them. As much as we give advice and try to influence important decisions, the final direction is up to the artist. So here is a list of the top seven most common mistakes indie artists make.
1. Ineffective use of web networking/promotion tools.
Inadequate use and understanding of social networking and various other web promotional resources is the biggest factor affecting the success of many indie music careers. I’ve spent some time on the following blogs, check them out and add to the discussion. If you know of any others, please let us know. Knowledge is power.
http://www.musicthinktank.com/
http://newmusicstrategies.com/
http://www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/index.html
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
2. Mastering
An understanding of mastering is the one thing that eludes many indie recording artists. Because they don’t understand it, they often come to the conclusion that it must not be important enough to worry about. In some cases, an unmastered mix may sound so great that you think – man, its done, it’s perfect. If this sounds like you, I really think your making a mistake! Don’t take my word for it check out this article.
http://www.studiorecordingengineer.com/forum-41.html.
3. Poorly Executed Production
Production value refers to live shows and audio recordings. Sometimes a client will blow into the studio like a tornado, give you some files to upload, lay down a few tracks, ask for everything dumped back on a USB key, and blow back out the door. I never meet or speak with the other engineers involved, and the client rarely has any knowledge of the file formats or the state of the audio footage they bring with them. I hear a lot of bad sound engineering in many situations. I actually had a hip hop artist blame me for bad mastering once, even though the beat he provided to rap on came fully mastered with brutal amounts of audio limiting and compression. He recorded his vocal at our studio but there was little we could do – except redesign the beat, which he didn’t want to do. He chose to have us re-master the beat with his newly added vocal. So we did it. Then, predictably, people started telling him that it sounded bad. It did sound bad. So he blamed me. I gave him all his footage and suggested he try another studio. Long story short, the other studio told him the same thing I did. He called me back and apologized and I’m pretty sure we’ll be working together again. At least I hope so cause that kid had skill. The point is if you are an indie recording artist with little knowledge of how to attain quality production value, you need a producer or some sort of knowledgeable music director to help you through the process. The same goes for live performances an understanding of what you, the performer, need to do to ensure things are sounding good is key. Live performance production value includes everything from how well rehearsed the band is to what state your instruments are in to the live sound engineer who mixes your show.
4. Intonation and General State of Instruments
Stringed instruments need to be setup by an expert. They need intonation often, several times a year if you play a lot. When you skip this step in preparation for a recording or live show it is likely your guitar or bass will not be in tune throughout the positions on the neck. It goes without saying that your recording/show will be better if your instrument is in tune. Electronics on instruments and amplifiers often need servicing If a guitar has a loose output jack, it will short out. If an instrument or amplifier is not electronically grounded, it will give you 60-cycle hum (undesirable electronic noise).
5. Preproduction
Here’s an article that discusses preproduction. Not a good idea to skip this stuff.
http://www.venetowest.com/musing/prepro.html
6. Taking wind from sail
Showing your work to your fans before its completed will exhaust the wind from the sail of the fully completed work. First impressions are critical. If you are more than just the songwriter of the music; if you are the performer and featured artist, having quality recordings of the material you publish is helpful. Hold back the demos until you get around to giving them the production value they deserve. Releasing your entire cannon of material all at once can also rapidly exhaust your winds of momentum once the buzz you generate from initial release dies down. Especially if your catalog is a variety of demo experiments and half- hearted attempts at recording. Leave your audience wanting more, make them wait a little and pay them back for their patience by delivering something extraordinary.
7. Cynicism
The following points are true:
-Being an indie artist is unbelievably difficult.
-Saying that life is unfair is among the largest of understatements.
-When it comes to being an indie artist, there are countless injustices you must constantly endure.
-There are forces at work causing damage to the culture of music.
-We live in a jungle and our only chance of survival is sticking together.
However, by supporting other artists, you support the local and/or global community you exist in. By support, I’m referring to more than just buying a show ticket or a CD positive vibes and encouragement is necessary to keep people energized about music. If you are in a state of perpetual cynicism about the unfair aspects of the music industry, you are not helping yourself or anyone around you. Focus on what you can do what is within your means, and take control of your destiny. Make it happen. Do not except NO for an answer. Themes of pain and suffering are deeply rooted in music the correlation is easily seen. Maybe artists are supposed to suffer a little but maybe in modern times, the suffering can be managed a little and tragic endings can be avoided. The music industry is US. Its what WE say it is. And its what WE make of it. There are recent developments (topics discussed on this blog) that are changing the music industry I echo Bob Lefsetz’s sentiment by saying that the Internet IS the best thing ever to happen for indie artists. There is much to be optimistic about. The tide has turned.
The Top 7 Mistakes That Indies Make by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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7 Responses to “The Top 7 Mistakes That Indies Make.”
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June 9th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Pretty empowering stuff there. It’s one thing for indie artists to know that THIS is the time to get with the do-it-yourself mentality, but its another thing to know how to actually do-it-yourself, if you see what I mean. I know too many people who could benefit from identifying those 7 common mistakes, if for nothing more than to realize that they’re actually making (or have made) them.
June 9th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
You see, i think what qualifies as ‘good engineering’ is more a matter of opinion than fact, and its terribly biased. If the qualified engineer can create both hi and low-fi through intended scientific methods, who is he to say which one is ‘better’. It reminds me of taste. A food critique may scoff at me, but i love the taste of cheap yellow mustard- i think its superior to more expensive mustards. People are all different, some of us like sonic crappiness, I’m living proof of this.
I think recording quality took a huge dive around 1970 when everything started sounding extremely crisp and fake. If you didn’t record by these new methods, you would sound too different for anyone to play you. Its like if some authority told all the painters in the world that they were only allowed to paint on brilliant white glossy paper. if they chose to paint on something else they would be completely ostersised by the painting community and excluded from the marketplace entirely.
Sound scientists first figured out how to record music so they could sell it, they gradually tweeked their methods so that they could sell more. This loudness war is just the next step in this progression no different from the development of hi-fidelity. Mixing is an art, but its an art geared towards exploiting a market and creating popular appeal. For an art-form desperately trying to gain recognition outside of those in the know, this motivation seriously hurts its credibility
yea it sucks living under a rock. its even worse when the rocks been plopped there by an elitist group who’ve made a completely arbitrary decision about what is “good”.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Bill
What I’m referring to has less to do with the standards of an elitist group, and more to do with the standards of music consumers. How many classic songs, hit records, or just bands that have big followings, have crappy production? Not many. Maybe even none. In the big picture, successful artists (weather indie or mainstream), have good sounding recordings. A minimum standard. The truly great artists have inspired production…much further beyond minimum standards. There is a correlation between production value, and having an audience. They are mutually exclusive.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
indie internet radio…
Second- These writers seem to infer that the record label’ s will stop being A&R sources. I doubt that will be the case. In the major label’ s case there maybe an argument that their A&R activities will change as they are always on the look out for…
September 30th, 2008 at 1:24 am
I spent two years around ‘99 involved in the Drum n’ Bass electronica scene in Toronto and found all the artists, followers, MC’s and Djs were infinitely more supportive to the others on the bill and in the scene – and not just to those in their genre. The Toronto Drum n’ Bass producers are world class and in my opinion far superior to anything out there.
I carry those fond memories back with me to the band scene, but do find that most bands don’t even introduce themselves to the other bands on the same bill. There are various things that need to happen to see more unity and less cynicism, hopefully you could attempt to detail in a future post. Cheers.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Chris – I agree with your comments…for some reason every now and then you come across a band (I would say they are the exception) that won’t even bother to say hi. It’s as if the bands on the bill are in some kind of competition…shouldn’t be that way.
The more bands promote and talk up one another…the better it is for all of us.
BTW – have you seen Endsville play?? They are awesome…and they talk to other bands (sorry James…couldn’t resist)
July 6th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Some good points here! But not sure if most factors are production related (might be biased based on topic of this site). Since there are many excellent quality tunes with no fans, I think by far most are marketing related followed by not taking action and probably crappy music.