Finding a record label: is it worth it anymore?

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Over the last 6 months, in talking with many people I work with and based on my own personal experience, I’m starting to notice that many of us (us, being musicians) feel that we haven’t “made it” if we haven’t signed something to a label. 20 years ago this may have been accurate, but nowadays, this idea seems totally debatable. Finding a record label to work with isn’t what it used to be.

How can signing with a label benefit you? A label can:

  • Give you access to online stores and sell your music, as well as manage sales and accounting.
  • Get you in touch with a network.
  • Give you credibility with other musicians and labels.

Yes, I know, these are pretty important benefits. However, if you’re constantly chasing after labels to get signed, it is not worth it. If your music has been turned down by multiple labels, maybe your song is not “ripe” enough to be out. Maybe it sounds outdated or too different from market trends. Perhaps it needs a better mix. If you keep pushing it, maybe it will sell eventually but perhaps the numbers will be so low that it makes releasing it questionable. I’ve released with little labels before and some songs sold for less than 20 copies. In these cases, I feel like I should have just given the track to friends instead.

The same goes for my own label. With some releases I’m blown away by how amazing they sound, and how innovative and beautiful they are, but despite the time spent on promotion and networking (or even using a PR company), these releases sold 20 copies as well. Why? Well, it’s mostly because the market is already saturated with music and people’s attention is constantly in demand. Gems get lost. I like to compare music to people who paint. It’s not because one paints a great canvas that means it will automatically sell.

We have a promotion list of about 200 people – including media and DJs – and even from this list in which we give them the music for free and push out multiple reminders, we barely get 15 downloads (sometimes 25 when there’s a spike of interest). That’s less than what we’ll sell. Sales will decline too if a release got promoted intensely, which is strange. It’s a pretty discouraging thing to try to promote music and not get any reactions at all. It’s a common thing that many, many musicians do, almost daily, and to see only a few reactions to their work can make them feel that perhaps their music has something wrong with it. But there isn’t anything wrong with it, it’s just not targeted properly

Ok, so if finding a record label isn’t the way to go, then what is?

Reduce your promotion efforts and target people that might be interested in the music directly instead. If you have to push so hard to get people’s attention and you’re putting yourself in a “begging” position, why not just keep your work for the people who actually might want it? I don’t think it’s healthy for anyone to fight to be seen or heard. In the long run, it makes people jaded and resentful.

What about giving the release away for free on Soundcloud? Many people do this and I think it might do more good than harm, if you don’t do it too often. If you start putting your quality tracks out there, some people will add them to their playlists. TIP: use tags to make sure your music gets noticed and check out my post on how to get feedback. Soundcloud now has a way for DJs to use tracks on the site for DJing.

Put your release on Youtube and make a little video. I did a survey not long ago and I was impressed by how so many people use YouTube to listen to music. You could also use services to get on Spotify and you can easily put your music on Bandcamp.

The main thing you want to do is to be everywhere. No reactions? It doesn’t matter, keep doing it. Keep some gems secret for when a label will come to you to sign you, if you feel like that might happen. Don’t insist on getting traction. Focus on those who care.

Social endorsement is the best promotion tool you can get. When people like what you do, they do the promotion for you. I’ll use Villalobos as an example here. He makes so much music compared to what he simply releases. He has a strong John Cage influence, but I’m not sure if he knows it. Basically, Cage suggested spending a lot of time in the studio and to always try new things, to have “barely controllable chaos” and to record it all. Ricardo has over 5,000 songs and plays some in clubs when he feels like it. Many tracks leak to friends and are relayed online among fans. But those fans really care about the music and cherish it.

Perhaps its time to keep the music we love to ourselves? By this I mean keeping it for the people who reach out, who want to listen. I’m personally fed up of trying to “get attention” or convince people that music I make is worth listening to. This is what I’m doing now. I’m giving some tracks to people I know who ask for them or who I know care. I feel very excited that 20 people really listen to my music compared with trying to reach to the whole world. Maybe making music hard to find again and keeping it mysterious is the way to go.

But then again, that’s just me.

SEE ALSO : Becoming a professional musician

Avoid setting music goals and work on your system instead

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Early each year, I hear about people setting music goals. We tend to see the action of setting goals as something that keeps us driving towards a precise destination. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I’ve done goal-setting for years, but I realize now that years where I was the most efficient in making things happen were the ones where no goals were set.

Let me compare my idea to the “get to the gym and get in shape” new year’s goal that people most typically set. In that case, the process is simple, linear, and tasks oriented: you get to the gym, follow instructions, keep track and try to maintain the willpower to go on a regular basis. Most will agree that the most difficult part is to keep up the motivation to go and holding yourself responsible for going.

Is this goal easy? Depends on the person; for some it is, others it’s not. Can we agree that it will work if you develop a method to achieve it? This could mean that you always go to the gym at the same time, that you make sure the gym is not too far, that you can create a routine around it…etc. This is a system and once you have one that is effective, then hardest part of going to the gym is already taken care of (well, almost).

For the music producer, some goals I often hear about:

  • To have more more gigs: This isn’t effective mostly because there is no mention of what “more gigs” implies; you might be setting yourself up for failure here. Because if you say “well, once every 2 weeks”, then perhaps you’ll gig a lot and then have a month with nothing. Perhaps in the end you have more gigs.
  • To finish an album: Sounds reasonable but there’s an underlying part that is not covered here which is, to make a coherent album, you need twice as much tracks as you want to make sure you have the best material possible. Is this included in your goals?
  • To be signed to a (specific) label: What about any other labels you might discard that could be the game changer?
  • Tour: See gigs. Touring doesn’t just happen, you need push for it and make it happen.

In setting goals, the “how-to” is often forgotten, and people end up failing.

My take on this is to work on building an effective system that works for you: make your art efficient, fun and a platform to express yourself adequately. Focusing on that will provide you with the tools to eventually make things happen. But honestly, it’s hard to make them happen if you don’t feel in charge of what you do.

But what is a system?

It’s measurable actions you put into place to make sure something comes out of this system efficiently, 100% of the time. It’s a way to make your life or tasks easier.

Where do you start with putting a system together?

I start with understanding what I can control and what I can’t. This sounds like an obvious one, but you’d be surprised by the number of people I work with who rage against things they can’t control, as if it would change anything in the end. For instance, you can’t control a label signing you but you can control the number of interactions with artists you can make in a week. This might sound a bit crazy, but I like to say that I can’t control precisely when a song is totally done, but I can control the number of hours I put in it. Other examples:

  • You can’t control the stability of your computer or your health, but you can make regular backups and stay in shape.
  • You can’t control if people will listen to your music or buy it. But this has nothing to do with you or your music in the first place. Everyone is busy as hell and continuously asked to do things for others. You can start by giving away your music to some people to see if that starts a movement.
  • If you can’t seem to finish music, honestly, I would invite you to collaborate. This ALWAYS open doors and opportunities more than if you stay alone. You have the choice to decide that.

I try to be aware of what I love to do and what tools can help support that. These days many people talk and mock Marie Kondo and her “does it spark joy?” question but she is absolutely right that when it doesn’t, perhaps it’s not for you. Same goes with music. In which phase of making music do you lose track of time, your appetite and hunger? For some, its when they program beats, for others it’s in arrangements and for some, mixing. Becoming a specialist at what you love doing, is a huge investment in your system because as you become more solid, other skills will also develop.

I spend a lot of time optimizing my preparation routine. This is the most overlooked phase of production and pretty much everyone skips it. I would encourage you to find the conditions that make your session the best it can be. Perhaps you need a certain condition to be met? In my case, I can get a very killer workflow if I have all the sessions prepared in front of me, but to prepare them annoys me. My solution was to spend periods of time where all I do is to prepare multiple sessions so that when its time to work on arrangements, I just open one and its all ready for me to attack and deliver the project.

Finding your system is far more useful than setting a goal. It’s a work in progress and it gets just better with time. Part of me sees the craftsmanship in this as perfecting your method over time. Some of my system that I use now has been built over the last 3 years, and I spend loads of time reading about how to learn more and improve it.

SEE ALSO : Finding a record label: is it worth it anymore?

Reverb tips and tricks

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In this post, I’ll cover a variety of reverb tips and tricks. If you’ve been following this blog or know me, you’ll know that reverb is one of my favorite effects and that I use it a lot. Quite a lot. As an early lover of dub techno – where reverb plays an important role – I’ve always also used it to create spaces in the mix.

The main uses for reverb are to:

  • Add an aesthetic and color. Some genres heavily depend on reverb to bring a certain mood to a mix. In dub, reggae, and techno, reverb often creates a dreamy feel that can be paired with delays to create a psychedelic effect.
  • Clarify a mix. If you use reverb in a specific way, it can make a huge difference in the precision of your mix, mostly for percussion, which will find their way in a created room. Sometimes percussion are hidden on top of one another.
  • Add depth. As a listener, there’s something quite lovely when you feel you’ve been transported into a room, a space where the sounds float around. This can be used to create the feeling of a live space.
  • Contribute to gluing a mix together. If most of your sounds are directed to a unique reverb in a send/AUX, they will feel united as part of the same aesthetic.

But also, if used wrongly, reverb can causes issues including:

  • Muddiness in a mix. Too much decay added to sounds will create a very dense space and sounds might get lost.
  • Muffled sounds. Percussive sounds that are swallowed in reverb will feel too distant and blurry.
  • Removes punch. If you lose the transients in the reverb, your song will feel dull and like it has no impact.
  • Added artifacts. Bad quality reverb create a certain noise that, once compressed or sent to mastering, will be translated in “pixelated“, artificial sounding results.

There are different ways to use reverb effectively so you get the most of it. Let’s discuss the different parameters of reverb, what they mean, and how to set them.

Reverb type

I will not get in details on how reverb works, how they were created, or those technical points but will focus on how I use them personally. The first thing to point out is the type of reverb to use. Each type of reverb uses a model of a specific kind of environment.

  • Room: Excellent on short samples or ones with fast transients. It clarifies the relation between multiple by creating space.
  • Chamber: Similar to rooms but deeper, thicker. Excellent for percussion as well but can give body to synths.
  • Hall: For long, ethereal presence. Halls are beautiful and will extend the decay of sounds, allowing multiple sounds to merge and melt together, with elegance.
  • Plates: Lots of colors, a touch of mysticism. Same use as Halls but with more personality.
  • Convolution: Used for emulation of space, therefore extremely useful for sound design. They can emulate anything above with sometimes, a bit more of an organic feel.

Now some parameters most reverb units come with include:

  • Wet/Dry: For the amount of reverb mixed with the incoming signal.
  • Pre-delay: “Pre-delay is the time between the end of the initial sound and the beginning of the first reflections being audible.” Set-properly, this will be responsible for the clarity of the reverb on your sounds.
  • Decay: How long lasts the reverb.
  • EQ: Most reverbs now have EQs included. This to set the tone of the reverb, as in bright or dark.

Now, on how to use all of those paramaters, here are my personal notes:

  • Using multiple types of reverb in a project can be risky but can also be beautiful if done right. I find that rooms, plates and halls at very low level will add a lot of depth to a mix. Generally, 5-15% on the wet-dry.
  • The Abbey Road trick involves cutting out of the reverb most of anything under 250-300hz and then lowering most of the high-mids.
  • Using bright reverb on dull sounds will bring out a natural brightness. This is a good alternative to boosting highs with an EQ.
  • Darker reverb tones add depth and body to sounds.
  • Percussion sounds great in dark plates too, not just rooms.
  • Play with the pre-delay to add depth. You can always sync it to the host BPM too. Otherwise, try avoiding going above 30ms to avoid too much action.
  • Find convolution online or make your own. If you like the reverb of a song, you can import it in the convolution to pick it up. Use a moment where the reverb can be heard on a percussion and the tail is very obvious. I often use old jazz songs for dirty verbs.
  • Automate some parameters in your reverb to add mysterious movement.
  • Try to use reverb in a send, and then send away different sounds in various AUX. I like to use up to 3 plugins and decide what sound goes where.

Reverb unit suggestions:

RP-Verb 2 for its organic feel.

Mturboreverb for the internal self-modulation you can do plus the crazy possibilities it can bring you.

Tverb for the percussion.

Adaptiverb for the ultimate sound design options. Use this with a plugin and never miss material for new pads.

SEE ALSO : Avoid setting music goals and work on your system instead

Tips for getting your music heard

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After the reactions to my compilation of tips for music production, I’ve been asked to provide some advice on getting your music heard, and potentially getting it signed to a label. When you make music, one of the first things you crave is for the whole world to hear your work, to connect with others through your creation and also implicitly as a need for validation. Many times people feel the urge to share their music (eh, I do too!), especially if the session was good. But if you sit on your work and wait, you’ll understand that this desire can be addressed differently.

Let’s approach your desire to get traction for your work by handling two things: your need for validation, and understanding how listeners pick their music. You need to understand both to be able to have a strategy going forward.

Firstly, let’s cover the validation aspect of your work.

Let it age

My first rule when I’m 90% done with a song, is to let it age for a few weeks. This is extremely important to make sure you haven’t fallen in what I call, a disconnected bubble of love with your song. When you fall in love with one of your songs, you have no distance or second perspective of it. You have some sort of unconditional love for your own work, meaning that your analytic self has been turned off and may not be able to spot technical flaws or irrelevant aspects of the song itself. Letting a song age for a few weeks will really disconnect you from that bubble and provide you with enough distance to approach it analytically. Ideally, you want to wait until a point where you forgot about the particular song in question.

My tip is to bounce the track and put it in a folder that has a date on it. I will also give myself a reminder on my phone to listen to in the future. I also will listen to it in a different context of my studio—a car ride could be excellent—or if possible, listening to it in presence of someone else can really help. You’ll want to observe that person’s reaction, not his or her feedback. You have no idea how listening to something in presence of a friend can really make you see things differently.

Consider validation from your circle of trusted friends

Do you have a circle of connections yet? This took me quite a while to establish, but once I had one, it was a great alternative for validation as opposed to posting my music publicly online (and avoid shaming myself!). Basically, your circle should be a mixture of friends, DJs, producers, “fans”, and music lovers. You don’t need the best DJs out there, just people who play often because they have the ear for what they love, what works, what and what doesn’t; they will tell you if your track fits with what’s going on. The producers will give you feedback on technical details while fans/music lovers will simply let you know if they love it or not. Fans and music lovers are probably the least useful in terms of critical feedback, but they’re actually very importan to test the “love at first listen” aspect of your work. My circle has about five people and one of my main criteria in deciding who should be in my circle was to find reliable people who can be honest, but who are also very responsive. I can’t be sending music to people who won’t respond if they don’t like it or just disappear.

I usually start sending my music to the circle once I’ve listened to it again after some time off and feel that the song has aged well. But sometimes what’s interesting is that music you end up doubting can be really appreciated from people who listen to it for the first time. This could mean your track is a keeper.

Unveiling your music publicly

One of the the most desired results producers seek for their music is to be heard, and get a lot of listens and likes online. Sadly there’s so much stuff happening in music-making that you can get lost in that desire. “But no one seems to care or will listen to my song!”, I often read/hear.

The real question is, “why would they?”

I know it seems harsh to be so blunt, but this is an important point that if you can answer, then you’ll get precise feedback regarding what you do wrong. Most of the time, what’s wrong is to build up your expectations, thinking that because you have a song that is great and maybe sounds like popular songs out there, that people should be all over it. Sadly, no, this is not the case. Maybe people are hearing your work as a cheap copy? Maybe they’re craving something else entirely?

Secondly, it’s important to be aware of how people are selecting their music. Listeners usually face different challenges in browsing for new music or for anything new in general. They usually want a bit of the “same old, same old”, as well new ideas. Generally, in looking for new music:

1- They’re looking for an emotional connection. If you need some pep for cleaning, or supporting music for coding, for example, chances are they’ll most probably dig into something they’ve already saved.

2- They’ll follow people they trust. We all have one friend who can make good recommendations. These people invest a considerable amount of time getting out of their usual routine to find new music, will read blogs and magazines to hear about trends, and will check out recommendations on Spotify (or an equivalent service). These are the people you want to reach first with your own music.

So, how do you reach out exactly?
The answer is simple: by being present.

As I’ve explained before, here are some important tips that will make a huge difference in poking through the noise.

1- Pick the moment when you’ll post your music. There are moments where people might be more suitable to discover music. Usually people do that on their downtime, meaning that releasing it in the end of the afternoon could be a good spot otherwise, in the evening.

2- Share a snippet to start with. Don’t share it all, especially if you want it to get signed. Labels hate music that has been spoiled.

3- Add pleasant looking artwork. Many people overlook this, but having artwork can influence people to click and listen.

4- Be extremely active on Soundcloud by leaving comments on similar music. Each time you leave a comment, people see you being active and if you’re pretty busy, they might want to check your profile. Don’t be a beggar asking for attention, be active and generous in your feedback. Your followers will see that and appreciate plus new artists might want to have you as a follower.

5- Always observe the golden rule: never ask anyone to leave feedback.

6- Observe people that often leave comments on music you like, then contact them in private. You can befriend anyone who often re-posts music or leaves comments. They’re the ones who are followed and will make your song look like it got listened to.

7- Anytime you contact someone, be personal in your message and simply invite the person to have a listen, but never ask for anything in return. Contacting people by private message is a great way to get traction. But be polite, courteous, and make sure it doesn’t look like you used a template. Don’t ask anything as people already know the drill.

8- Try to have some of your circle listen and have feedback. Hopefully your friends like it and will support it.

9- Promote other people’s music. Again, this is important. Why would people support you if you don’t support anyone it in the first place?

10- Use tags. Don’t be afraid to use them, because they’re important for anyone looking for music.

SEE ALSO : Reverb tips and tricks