Post by viciousbliss on Jan 17, 2017 16:57:07 GMT -6
Here's been my experience. It really boils down to the fact that often the artists just don't care. The free clients I've had liked the subpar mixes I did when first starting out years ago. One guy was even able to get a free mix and master from someone with 30 years experience and a formal audio education. The engineer even redid the fake drums, added keys, changed the tempo in parts, and basically rewrote the song. I think that's the version this client shows everyone. When trying new plugs or techniques, I've worked on their songs more and have got them pretty close to album quality despite the limitations in their source recordings and all the compromises I had to make when using my I5 cpu. No one really cared. They probably won't care when I redo the stuff without the compromises this year. For them, I think it was enough that even at my most inexperienced, their stuff no longer sounded like a bare bones bedroom recording. None of them is really giving their new material a mix at all. They just record some stuff in Reaper or Garage Band and post it.
Branding is ultra-important I think. I took it upon myself to learn this stuff when my band was supposed to reform. We had recorded with a college-educated home studio guy charging $25 an hour who nickel and dimed us. Terrible experience but he gave us a better result in 3 hours than our buddies gave us with their firewire interface and its stock software. When I shopped around for studios to use, I didn't find anyone who had samples that I liked. Everything was bare bones, sterile, and generic(and if they had samples, every sample had the same exact production style). None of the studios had a strong identity or brand. Whatever info was posted on their site didn't provide any evidence that they knew anything. Many had no samples at all. Just basic info and lists of gear. Seems a lot of studios think all they need to do is blab about what gear they have. A lot of the language on studio sites is nothing but basic appeals to emotion, all this "we will make your dream come true". No one was giving me a reason to hire them. Probably the strongest studio brand around here is Steve Albini's Electrical Audio. The rates for him or his staff are fair and you know what you're getting even if you have no clue about Albini's credits.
Right after I launched my old site, a $10 an hour guy started up a couple miles down the street with some cheap Behringer and Samson gear and cracked plug-ins(plugs would be added to his gear list right after popping up on torrent sites). Both are listed under his gear, so people might think he owns classic pieces of hardware. He gave away many free hours in exchange for Facebook likes. I actually thought his samples were better than a lot of brick and mortar studios around here. For whatever reason he raised his rates to $20 an hour and took most samples down. I think this guy is definitely competition for studios that pay rent around here that charge more. If a client can only afford enough time for basic tracking and a rough mix, it probably doesn't matter a lot where he goes because he won't have a budget for the time needed to do specialized mixing and mastering.
Bands are becoming more a thing of the past. I don't see many people on CL posting to start bands and a lot of the people who do post are the same guys who haven't been able to find anyone for years. In my interaction with a lot of these bands as a potential member, they hardly take their craft seriously. Most of em seem to just want to slop down some generic drek quickly so they can play on a tiny stage and pretend like they're rock stars. I quickly noticed that a lot of guys playing originals are doing so because they lack the technical skill to play even simple covers. This type of client seems like the type who would want you to rewrite their song into something usable and make them sound like a god for $20 a song. Bait and switch is another common thing with these types. "C'mon down we love all your influences and want to do exactly what you're talking about". Then I show up at their jam spot and find out they lied to me, want to play completely different music, and then they act inconvenienced when I don't know any of it. It's also funny when the only good riff they play is from a cover that they try to pass off as their own. Most of the time when bands try to recruit me, they are very demanding and inflexible. The whole attitude is ironic because they show that they don't even read my ad when they reply. This has been my experience dealing with musicians off ads for the last 15 years. I don't know what music culture was in the past, but, when you have so many low life hacks out there, not a lot of bands are gonna be forming. I see why a lot of people would rather just make electronic music or rock with fake drums on their computer instead.
Venues don't seem interested in paying original bands. Even over a decade ago, the best you could hope for was the $300 from the door split between however many bands. Maybe there's a couple exceptions somewhere. Lots of cover bands around here, maybe some of them are making money. But I don't think those type of bands really record anything. The next step for myself is to remix a few tracks now that I have a Z800. I'm able to work at 96k and use many more instances of many plugs compared to my I5. This is real important for Sknote Strip since you can't freeze it. One instance of MJUC still maxes it out at HQ mode for the most part though. After I do these mixes, I'll finish up my new site, maybe make some videos, and just try to keep building a brand and see what happens. Advertising would definitely help. If we all had budgets for ads in magazines or commercials on local tv, I'm sure there would be a lot more potential clients.
Branding is ultra-important I think. I took it upon myself to learn this stuff when my band was supposed to reform. We had recorded with a college-educated home studio guy charging $25 an hour who nickel and dimed us. Terrible experience but he gave us a better result in 3 hours than our buddies gave us with their firewire interface and its stock software. When I shopped around for studios to use, I didn't find anyone who had samples that I liked. Everything was bare bones, sterile, and generic(and if they had samples, every sample had the same exact production style). None of the studios had a strong identity or brand. Whatever info was posted on their site didn't provide any evidence that they knew anything. Many had no samples at all. Just basic info and lists of gear. Seems a lot of studios think all they need to do is blab about what gear they have. A lot of the language on studio sites is nothing but basic appeals to emotion, all this "we will make your dream come true". No one was giving me a reason to hire them. Probably the strongest studio brand around here is Steve Albini's Electrical Audio. The rates for him or his staff are fair and you know what you're getting even if you have no clue about Albini's credits.
Right after I launched my old site, a $10 an hour guy started up a couple miles down the street with some cheap Behringer and Samson gear and cracked plug-ins(plugs would be added to his gear list right after popping up on torrent sites). Both are listed under his gear, so people might think he owns classic pieces of hardware. He gave away many free hours in exchange for Facebook likes. I actually thought his samples were better than a lot of brick and mortar studios around here. For whatever reason he raised his rates to $20 an hour and took most samples down. I think this guy is definitely competition for studios that pay rent around here that charge more. If a client can only afford enough time for basic tracking and a rough mix, it probably doesn't matter a lot where he goes because he won't have a budget for the time needed to do specialized mixing and mastering.
Bands are becoming more a thing of the past. I don't see many people on CL posting to start bands and a lot of the people who do post are the same guys who haven't been able to find anyone for years. In my interaction with a lot of these bands as a potential member, they hardly take their craft seriously. Most of em seem to just want to slop down some generic drek quickly so they can play on a tiny stage and pretend like they're rock stars. I quickly noticed that a lot of guys playing originals are doing so because they lack the technical skill to play even simple covers. This type of client seems like the type who would want you to rewrite their song into something usable and make them sound like a god for $20 a song. Bait and switch is another common thing with these types. "C'mon down we love all your influences and want to do exactly what you're talking about". Then I show up at their jam spot and find out they lied to me, want to play completely different music, and then they act inconvenienced when I don't know any of it. It's also funny when the only good riff they play is from a cover that they try to pass off as their own. Most of the time when bands try to recruit me, they are very demanding and inflexible. The whole attitude is ironic because they show that they don't even read my ad when they reply. This has been my experience dealing with musicians off ads for the last 15 years. I don't know what music culture was in the past, but, when you have so many low life hacks out there, not a lot of bands are gonna be forming. I see why a lot of people would rather just make electronic music or rock with fake drums on their computer instead.
Venues don't seem interested in paying original bands. Even over a decade ago, the best you could hope for was the $300 from the door split between however many bands. Maybe there's a couple exceptions somewhere. Lots of cover bands around here, maybe some of them are making money. But I don't think those type of bands really record anything. The next step for myself is to remix a few tracks now that I have a Z800. I'm able to work at 96k and use many more instances of many plugs compared to my I5. This is real important for Sknote Strip since you can't freeze it. One instance of MJUC still maxes it out at HQ mode for the most part though. After I do these mixes, I'll finish up my new site, maybe make some videos, and just try to keep building a brand and see what happens. Advertising would definitely help. If we all had budgets for ads in magazines or commercials on local tv, I'm sure there would be a lot more potential clients.
