Tired of Playing Other People's Music

I'm making my New Year's resolution a little early this year. December 18th to be exact. I've decided to take a year off from gigging to focus on creating my own music (rather than playing other's). And, more importantly, to spend time helping develop my three little musicians.

To be sure I don't get tempted to accept any more gigs, I'm selling my rig. This is insane power, crazy ruggedness, and a money-making machine if ever there was one. Two or three low-paying gigs and this rig will have paid for itself.

Click here for details.

"Please Contact Billing/Support"

I was cleaning out my mailbox (only 649 messages not yet sorted into my numerous pack-rat sub-folders) ...and in doing so, I came across an old email from some new and exciting (at the time) web-site that wanted me to join TODAY! and reap the benefits of all they had to offer for FREE!

Here's what they said to me to try to get me to sign up:

"Our site has several interesting features that we offer to artists and musicians all for free. We offer free profile pages of the band(s), Web site hosting, music downloads and music selling, event tickets, blogs, event listings, merchandise sales and a online radio station that plays all Canadian bands for free through our site."

Sound familiar?

Of course it does. But haven't you heard the old adage "Nothing in this world is free"? Even this age-old piece of financial advice itself is no longer free! ($36 and change!?! Yikes!!!)

There are four things that can happen once a call is put out in this fashion:

1. No one signs up. Result: web-site goes away.
2. Artists sign up in droves well beyond expectations of site creators; the web-site quickly gets overloaded and with no forward thinking business plan, the creators have no marketing engine in place to feed the hungry servers with storage space and pipes with bandwidth... so... almost exactly three days after you spent months setting up your account, uploading your music, photos, swag, concert/ticket info AND advertised to all your mailing lists, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter you click on the link and you're redirected to some other domain with a link that looks something like "http://name.server.net/suspended.page/" with the only text on it being: "Please Contact Billing/Support" written in large, friendly letters.
   
3. Artists sign up in droves meeting expectations of site creators who then say "Hey, guys, isn't this great? We're all one big happy family and to keep us all together we're going to have to charge you a nominal annual fee for yearly storage bla bla bla" (or insert whatever monetising strategy you want from storage fees to percentages of sales to ad space to ensure your 'free' music page isn't buried deep beneath the bowels of the site's sub-sub-sub-domain etc). Result: A few enterprising dudes are getting rich real quick and a whole bunch of ex-CDBabies are a little too proud to admit they were wrong in jumping ship (hint: they won't fully come to that realisation until they come to year 4 of their stay and someone with a calculator will walk by and say "You know, you've just spent more than the one-time fee over at CDBaby." -- which will earn the hapless calculator-toting dude a nice bloody nose for his trouble I'm sure!)
4. Artists sign up at a steady rate pleasing the site creators who have a business plan (and financing model) geared to have the business grow at exactly the same rate as the site's popularity never once requiring a set-up fee nor monthly or annual fees. The funding model is purely a fixed (low) percentage cut from sales. If the web-site doesn't do a good job attracting consumers, they get no money and their business fails. They are in it for themselves right alongside the artists. A symbiotic relationship which, in my personal view, is ultimately the business model of the future music industry. No one getting money off the backs of anyone else. Everyone's pay is commensurate with the level of effort and talent they have pumped into it.
   

CDBaby was never a "free" site and never pretended to be so their model doesn't show in the list above.

I've come across more 1's, 2's and 3's than I'd care to count. In fact, it was upon clicking the link in the eMail I mentioned at the start of this post that I came to the "Please contact Billing/Support" page. Another one bites the dust.

But what of #4? Are there any such sites out there?

Yes.

One.

Audiolife.

'nuff said.

Time to Pony up...

Over at the CD Baby Relaunch Debate, Pony (from CDBaby) chimed in and asked "...while I'm here in New Jersey, is there anything you guys want me to ask for?"

Let's see...

While the firing of the entire IT department from bottom to top is certainly called for, we're not investors so it really wouldn't mean much to us. We don't want heads to roll and most of us understand the roll-back is a non-starter.

I've been in computers since before Bill Gates' famous quote on just how much RAM we'd ever need; and, admittedly, this is going to sound ridiculously pretentious and arrogant but CDBaby/Discmakers have proven they need remedial help in this domain so here goes...

You need to do the following WITHOUT fail:

a) Stop developing in Prod and establish what's there right now as CDBaby 2.0.

b) Divide your development team up as follows:

- 80% on CDBaby 2.1 which will be dedicated to critical fixes only (i.e. what's broke)

- 10% on CDBaby 2.2 which will be made up largely of Must-Haves (i.e. what was, but should not have been dropped from CDBaby 1.0)

- and the last 10% on tweaks, troubleshooting and prod support.

c) pick a firm date by which CDBaby 2.1 will be delivered and publish it far and wide *including* on your forward facing page to let paying customers know of the change that's coming and whatever scheduled downtime is associated with it.

d) pick a target date for CDBaby 2.2 and be clear to all when you state this date that it is only a target (it has to be in order to allow time to pick up whatever drops out of 2.1 in order to meet the firm date stated in "c" above).

e) establish and develop a back-out plan in the event 2.1 fails miserably, the worst that will happen is a quick reversion back to 2.0.

f) establish parameters to help the decision-makers know when to "pull the plug" if needed.

g) lather, rinse, repeat.

After you've gone through a few cycles of this, you'll get the hang of it and your community of artists will begin to breathe a little easier. It's the uncertainty that's been killing us.

Then, finally, you can repent by doing a huge world-wide multimedia "we're sorry" ad campaign (Superbowl commercial anyone?) and by taking a one-time hit in the pocketbook and crediting all artists *that stuck through it all* with one (1) free album set-up to be used at their discretion, is fully transferable, with no expiration date.

...or... save us all a huge amount of time and just let the baby die.

What will happen if CDBaby does die...?

I'm finally getting some traction on this blog and, to fully leverage the traffic, I wanted to post the most pressing (unanswered) question in my mind:

What will happen to my relationship with iTunes and Napster et al if CDBaby goes down the tubes?

1) Will iTunes simply drop my catalogue?
2) Will Napster not know where to funnel my payments to?
3) Will any attempts to re-establish existing catalogues get turned down as "double submissions"?

I usually try to present what I think is most likely, but in this case, I'll be honest... I haven't a clue. More than likely, the answer to the above will vary from one carrier to the next. Considering CDBaby distributed to dozens of places... untangling our next steps will be tedious to say the least.

Okay, and, well maybe I have another pressing question that is pertinent as all CDBaby Artists fire off in all directions signing up with every web gadget in the webosphere:

How much harm are we doing to the slight chance we have at someday getting that "magical break" that "one chance" at the big time? If an interested label suddenly realises that our song rights are tied up in dozens of various Terms of Service agreements in dozens of jurisdictions globally, might they just walk away?

The term "Look before you leap" comes to mind but in this case, "Look before you hopscotch" might be more à-propos.

Holy Moses!

A great, and might I say fresh look at the music industry. Here is part 1. I can hardly wait to read his next post...

The True Indie business model...

...and by "True Indie business model" I mean the business model for "true" indies... in other words the Indies that DON'T "just happen to have indie contracts from indie labels that are 'indie bed' with the majors" if you know what I mean.

So here's the True Indie business model... the absolute cheapest way to go about the business of being a small-fry singer/songwriter or whatever you might prefer to call yourself:

A) MAKE MUSIC: See the other posts on this blog for help doing that as well as all the places that'll help you on the sidebar "Top Ten or so...".



B) UPLOAD IT TO AUDIOLIFE FOR FREE! These crazy monkeys will provide true on-demand one-off manufacturing of 4-panel shrink-wrapped CDs in standard jewel cases (or whatever you want):



C) PUBLISH YOUR STORE IN FREE PLACES: Put your store up in free places like a blog, Facebook, MySpace, etc.


D) AFTER A FEW SALES: Hook up with HostBaby and get yourself one kick-butt web-site or two.


E) GO GLOBAL WITH CDBABY: Hook up with CDBaby (through your already established HostBaby connection) and get yourself a real bonafied CD (complete with Barcode and presence on iTunes, Napster, and a gazillion other places).


F) UPDATE AUDIOLIFE: Upload the new version of your official CD onto Audiolife.


G) NEED MORE SONGS? I have over 600 songs written. There's no way I'll produce them all. If you need one, let me know. I've got all styles and I'll probably let you record, perform and sell your CDs with my songs on them in exchange for radio play (equate to royalties) and exposure (equate to more business):


H) GET EVEN BIGGER IN A VERY SMALL WAY: Now that you've got so many great tunes and you're selling even more CDs, you can start entering that other level of indie and that's when you'll want to get connected with the professionals behind the scenes at Audiolife who can and will take your music (and your look) to new heights.


Seriously... Audiolife is where you need to start and if Brandon Hance (CEO) has anything to do with it, this is where you'll stay because, as he puts it:

"...we can do manufacturing for you as well. Whether you need short run orders or a bulk purchase, Audiolife can facilitate the manufacturing process end-to-end. Our aim is to be the one stop shop for artists."

One stop shop. Revolutionary.

That's it. All your bases are covered. Now you've got all the time to work on that mysterious fourth chord you’ve heard about.

Blogs are good too

First of all, they're free. Second, they drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your site. Your blog need not be a daily posting chore, it just needs all the right buzzwords. For example, my wedding music blog gets picked up by every local search a bride or groom may make in my neck of the woods. I don't get contracts out of every visit, but at least I've given myself that opportunity.

Even my diet blog drives huge numbers. In fact, the wedding blog, this Indie blog and my All-U-Can-8-Diet blog account for about 10-15% of the hits on my site and, of those hits, are responsible for about 50% of the gigs I land.

I post once in a blue moon. If I posted daily, I might increase my traffic, but for now, I'm quite satisfied with the ROI.

Calling All Indies: The Time Has Come

This is it.

I've read countless posts on innumerable indie music navel-gazing blogs all trying to say the past few years had been the turning point for indies and, well, all kinds of other hogwash that applied exclusively to the indies that just happen to have indie contracts from indie labels that are "indie bed" with the majors... Balderdash.

Truth is... there's been nothing out there for the true indie... The guy like me who happens to have 600+ songs written and zero intention of becoming a rock star but like every artist, still wants his creations out there.

I've personally grilled Derek Sivers (past owner of CDBaby) as well as Tony van Veen new CEO since Discmakers took over (4th Q 2008). CDBaby is the number 1 place for indie music on the planet and quite likely the universe. Still, when a disc manufacturer buys out an on-line music retailer, it doesn't take rocket science to add 2 + 2 together. Here's what I told Tony:

When I heard the news of the merger, my thoughts went immediately toward the possibility (probability?) that CDs could be burned on-demand. The "never out of stock" idea is sooooo enticing and the respectable stature of DiscMakers would only add to overall buyer confidence.

Certainly this would be a paradigm shift not only in the way you do business but also for the industry. Quite frankly, I dare say this would toss the entire CD manufacturing world on its ear. Not something to take lightly or to just jump headlong into.

But really... What better company to do that than one affiliated with CD Baby?

God bless Tony, he responded, as he does nearly all blog comments, and said he was taking the company in that very direction in the 1st Q 2009.

So, did he?

Well, not by my "true indie" standards. Check it. The only 5 or 10 CD packages available have limited options (2 panel insert in black jewel case only) and are only available within the continental US. Anything else, for example, 10 CDs in clear jewel case with a 4-panel insert and double-sided tray card would be so expensive as to force you to sell your CD at roughly $25 a disc just to stand a chance at breaking even. Sure hope you don't have any studio & mastering debts to pay off...

I'm going to call an all stop here cause if you think I'm dissing CDBaby and Discmakers, I'm not. If you think I'm dissing Derek Sivers or Tony van Veen, I'm not. CDBaby and Discmakers are both fantastically professional companies with clear minded goals and solid mandates to help their segment of the music business. If anything, I'm just frustrated by the lack of that final step that would have truly brought the indie onto the playing field.

Enter Audiolife.

For no cost whatsoever, I put an Audiolife store up on my site and wherever else I want (Facebook, MySpace, various blogs, etc) that sells whatever music and swag I care to create and upload.



If you think that's cool... just wait... it gets better.

For a few bucks more, you can get a full album set-up from CD Baby (about $55 US) which includes a Soundscan recognised barcode (look it up) as well as distribution to every single digital store on the planet (iTunes, Napster, Amazon, MSN Music, Amie Street, to name but a few - actually, right now my OUCH CD is available on 46 stores...) and then you can (and this is the part I absolutely LOVE) you can upload your CD to Audiolife and for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction (that's not a typo) of what it would cost us produce your CD, Audiolife will produce the 5 CDs that CDBaby usually asks for up front and ship them directly there for you at a stupid-low cost of probably about $40 US. Compare that to conventional CD manufacturing costs that get you no barcode and no digital distribution and no swag... well... you get the picture.

Better still, you can upload "preview" versions of your CD onto Audiolife in order to generate funds to pay for your barcode and album set-up and you're on your way.

With Audiolife, if you want some CDs for a show (and I've done this myself with OUCH and the quality is 100%) you can get your CDs and even T-Shirts at cost. Sweet!

But the best part, the cherry on top, if you will, is the fact that once I've finally managed to coax that potential buyer onto my site and I've gotten them interested enough to click on my "store" link, the only thing my potential customer sees is my stuff. Just... my... stuff... No one else's. Not even a "People who bought Luc's music also bought..." Which means there's no chance that my potential sale will be distracted by "This week's new arrival" or any other competition.

I've been waiting for a business model like this for years. This is, I think an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something that truly presents the "new music business" those bloggers had been pontificating about for years...

This is it. It's the Mom & Pop type music ebusiness if you know what I mean.

So here's the True Indie business model... the absolute cheapest way to go about it (that I've found in 30 years+ of searching):

a) Make music (see other posts on this blog for help doing that).
b) Upload it to Audiolife.
c) Put your store up in free places like a blog, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
d) If you're lucky enough to get sales, hook up with HostBaby and get yourself one kick-butt web-site or two.
e) Hook up with CDBaby (through your already established HostBaby connection) and get yourself a real bonafied CD (complete with Barcode and presence on iTunes, Napster, and a gazillion other places).
f) Upload the new version of your official CD onto Audiolife.
g) If you are lucky enough to make even more sales, then you can start entering that other level of indie and that's when you'll want to get connected with the professionals behind the scenes at Audiolife or the folks at Discmakers who can and will take your music (and your look) to new heights.

But seriously... Audiolife is where you need to start and if Brandon Hance (CEO) has anything to do with it, this is where you'll stay because, as he puts it:

"...we can do manufacturing for you as well. Whether you need short run orders or a bulk purchase, Audiolife can facilitate the manufacturing process end-to-end. Our aim is to be the one stop shop for artists."

One stop shop. Revolutionary.

Check it out... soon.

See how I integrated it... (still lots more to upload)

DIY Studio:Part 5 - "There's Pain... and there's Motrin Pain..."

Brace yourself... Mom & Dad (or whomever else shares the household with you) will be pleased as punch but you'll be cussing ten ways to Sunday because all the sound will be staying in and crashing repeatedly into your sensitive young (you're young, right?) eardrums in sickening barf-inducing fashion. If you just plop yourself down in your brand new finished studio thinking you can start playing right away, ...uhm...how do they say... "You'se got another thing comin'!"

Now's the time to start surfing and reading up on home studios and the management of acoustics. There's plenty of sites you've already come across before getting to mine that talked about how to manage sound inside your studio. Like I mentioned in Part 4, my studio has enough freaky angles to break up the sound naturally. Therefore, I don't know what's best. Though, if I had had to come up with a cheap solution, I would have learned to make quiche, omlettes, or whatever else takes a lot of eggs and pasted the empty egg cartons throughout the studio. Seriously.

It's your choice. You can go to great expenses and buy all kinds of contraptions that'll almost work as good as egg cartons or carpet remnants, so, if it's "the look" you're after, then by all means, invest. Otherwise, go to your nearest carpet manufacturer/installer and buy some trimmings for a few bucks and you will be playing music in your studio by this time tomorrow.

Luc

DIY Studio:Part 4 - Freaky Angles

If you're working with a perfectly rectangular room, that's actually not so good, but in the event you do have obstacles to drywall around, go wild. Building angles (in corners especially) will deflect sound at the source and encourage it to stay inside the room.

I have a particularly neat contraption I built around the main line in for my water. The mudder I hired (okay... I couldn't do it *all* myself) called it the Voyageur Space Station (from Hell). Whatever... it works great because a peak juts out of the wall right where the bass drum is. This effectively deflects the sound and distributes it nicely throughout the room.

Next up: Insulating Concrete Walls

Luc

DIY Studio:Part 3 - Lighting Fixtures

I opted to install wall sconces - my wife thinks it was because of my sensitive side, but actually, it was for practicality - since you want to minimize the noise going up, try to punch the fewest holes in the ceiling. Thus, opt for wall mounted lighting or, better still, no lighting at all and bring in table lights and such and plug them into the many outlets you'll have installed.

You are pre-wiring tons of plugs, right...?

Now, a word of warning... when I put in my lighting, I thought I'd get fancy and put in a dimmer. "What better way to echo whatever mood of music I was playing" or so I thought. Unfortunately, that blasted dimmer introduces a hiss into my recordings and causes my electric guitar to become something resembling an AM radio transponder. I'm sure encasing the wiring in insulated conduits *before* installing drywall would have done the trick, but in my case, it was too late.

So anytime I record, I turn off the sconces.

Luc

DIY Studio:Part 2 - Air Vents & Air Returns

Here's a little diagram that shows the type of box I built for both the vent and the air return. The yellow stuff represents old socks (tip: wash first!). I only managed three intersecting angles within my boxes but the more you can get, the better. If you're actually making the vent coming in, you may also be able to recess the entire contraption into the ceiling or preferably high up into the wall (mine is jutting down from the ceiling and had to be drywalled - not easy). Note: Regarding the air flow arrow in the diagram, the air flow for the cold air return would actually be opposite as it would also be trying to leave the room.

Next up... lighting.

Luc

DIY Studio:Part 1 - Studio Walls

***Remember to check your local building codes before doing any of your own renovations; and, get everything inspected by a certified professional before putting the final touches on your project.***

[click on images to enlarge]

Top View

1. Build & install your wall with staggered 2x3 or 2x4 studs on 2x6 headers

2. Weave your Fire&Sound batting insulation
3. Install your Soundproofing Drywall (usually green in colour) ***some people recommend gluing the drywall onto the studs in order to avoid using screws or nails which might conduct sound right into the framework. The green drywall texture is, in my opinion, not really conducive to this approach (it might break apart and fall off before you get to the next step). If you want, just minimize the use of screws by putting in just enough to hold the sheet in place. Seriously though, you'll be screwing the latts through into the studs in the next step anyway so......

4. Install your horizontal 1x3 lattes with screws going into each alternate stud (since every second stud is recessed)

5. Install your drywall using as few screws as possible.


Other Tips:

• Use screws wherever possible since nails shake loose prematurely particularly considering the nature of the sound vibrations that will be going around.
• Holes are our enemies!!! A hole the size of a dime can apparently reduce your soundproofing effectiveness by as much as 25%. I'm not sure if that's true, but once you've put this much effort, why take a chance?
• As I said before, always check your local building codes before doing any of your own renovations; and, get everything inspected by a certified professional before putting the final touches on your project. Always use CSA Approved (or equivalent for your country) materials.
• When prepping holes for lights, fixtures, or wall outlets, make sure you cut as precisely as possible and backfill with extra sound batting around the junction boxes. Beware of fire codes/fire hazards!!! Consider using CSA Approved expanding foam to fill gaps - I used this in tough spots I couldn't reach to fill by hand.
• When using screws, some people recommend pre-drilling your holes and filling them with caulking... a nice touch, I'll admit... if you've got a couple years to tack onto the length of your project (I didn't do this).
• Don't be fooled, this is going to be expensive. Cost out your materials first and then add 25% - that'll be your final cost. For a perfectly rectangular 18x12 room with two windows and one door, I would estimate a base cost of $3000. Add 25% and that gives you $3750 - of course, that includes the cost of industrial carpeting, soundproofing the ceiling as well and all your wiring and lighting and whatever hardware you require. It adds up pretty quick.

In my next post, I'll show you how to build soundproof boxes to fit over your air vents and air returns.

Luc

Future posts...

To give you an idea of what I'll be discussing, here is a short list of posts I plan on making:

1) Building your own sound-proof studio (hope there's a Home Depot near your house!)
2) BOSS BR-1180-CD digital recording studio
3) Yamaha and Ibanez Guitars
4) Peavey Amps
5) JVC Recorders and Stereos
6) Compaq Computers
7) Audacity Software
8) HostBaby
9) CD Baby

Well... that oughta keep me busy here for quite a while.

Stay tuned

Luc

Why 'IndieDIY"?

Why did I choose this name for my blog? Simple, really. It seems to me that most Independent Musicians out there don't realize just how easy it is to be independent. Frankly, based solely on the glut of companies tripping over each other to offer "Fantastic Services Never Before Available to Indie Musicians for Just $29.95/month (plus $6.99 per submission fee)" one has to wonder where the meaning of "independent" has gone.

Therefore, 'IndieDIY' is here to remind Indies that, if nothing else, we are independent do-it-yourselfers first. Let those companies target the 'hobby' musicians with disposable incomes to burn. Meanwhile, you and I will be here discussing our successes and failures, learning from them, and saving our hard earned cash.

Luc