another recording question...

bathroom gurgle

are record companies only interested in hearing recordings that are perfectly done in a studio or do they listen to demo/ep style recordings as well?

fitz

My take on it has always been that firstly, they want to have to do as little as possible, and secondly, you want to represent yourself as well as you possibly can...no second chance at a first impression and all that.

But at the end of the day, who knows what record companies are looking for these days?
I'd certainly only be guessing.

DamagedTrax

these days they want to be saving money wherever they can, so a good polished recording says to them that the product is nearly complete.

gone are the days of garage demos on a cassette.

PaulBrewer

bathroom gurgle wrote: »

are record companies only interested in hearing recordings that are perfectly done in a studio or do they listen to demo/ep style recordings as well?

Record company people, as a rule, are no longer music people.
I've only ever met one guy (Michael who used run the Virgin office in NY , long since gone) who understood the creative and technical processes in record making..... and that was in the 90s!

To hark back to the Ye OLde DAys again in the record industries most successful period , 70/80s an A+R man was usually a musician or producer or both. Coincidentally I think the late 70s early 80s was also a high point for recording but that's another story.

So if guys running record companies (into the ground?) aren't music people in any recognizable way then if you present them with anything other than a finished product they don't know what it is.

A demo is no longer a demo - it's invariably the finished product that hasn't been released.

However to add insult to injury record companies don't listen to demos anyway! :rolleyes:

PMI

most is covered above:

record company wants product ready for release:

record company wants product with a following and fan base:

record company want sellable product ie: image

record company want to put minimum money into your project poss distribution and promotion and make sure its your best as very rare you will get take 2.

record company may then want to know your name, what the song is about and how it means so much to you.

DamagedTrax

PMI wrote: »

record company may then want to know your name, what the song is about and how it means so much to you.

chance would be a fine thing

PMI

DamagedTrax wrote: »

chance would be a fine thing

haha yeah thats why i put "may want" because probably not

shayleon

record companies want someone that doesn't need them, just like banks will give u a loan if u prove that u don't need it...

PMI

shayleon wrote: »

record companies want someone that doesn't need them, just like banks will give u a loan if u prove that u don't need it...

Theres the quote right there.....

if you do it without them and make enough noise they will take you to dinner and try to buy you..... proven throughout the years....

madtheory

PMI wrote: »

Theres the quote right there.....

if you do it without them and make enough noise they will take you to dinner and try to buy you..... proven throughout the years....

That's true. What really proves that is if you already have a loyal following. So it's not really down to the recording, but the gigging. You have to do loads of gigs. That way, unless your totally deluded, you'll soon realise whether or not your music sells.

383Ger

The record companies ARE still signing but are just a lot choosier about who they sign, and I feel that a lot of it now is about developing strong partnerships - not just with a label but with all aspects of the business: management, publishing, merchandising, internet etc - partners that will fight for you, rather than one company (eg label) just dictating their terms to another (band). The partnerships works together for the common goal...success.
I do think we have a fairly healthy local music scene in Ireland at the moment, but I think our bands need to be cleverer about their approach, and we need to raise the bar of our standards if any are to break out at international level. Just because we have all the fancy tricks of production that weren't commonly available a few years doesn't mean we can hide inadequate songs behind this. At the end of the day it's still about "the song", and a killer song will always win out, irrespective if you are with a label or not.

PaulBrewer

madtheory wrote: »

That's true. What really proves that is if you already have a loyal following. So it's not really down to the recording, but the gigging. You have to do loads of gigs. That way, unless your totally deluded, you'll soon realise whether or not your music sells.

Post of the month ! That's the crux .... if you're any good and you get exposed to people then they'll want to listen ..... If you get exposure and people don't want to listen ......... well ......

PMI

and then at that point why do you need the record company? money?... thats already coming in from your following at gigs.... ya gettin us?

BumbleB

Apparently the bees gees demos were so good they could have released them as finished material.

bathroom gurgle

the idea of doing an album ourselves on our own recording equipment is out of the question. i think i mentioned it on another post. i wanted to do it but the others didn't. the thing about our 'following' is that i can't see one. we draw people into our gigs and they listen. they don't tend to leave from hearing what we play which is good. they even come up to some of us and say they liked what they heard. the problem is we can't get people to come back to our next gigs or to look us up. so this idea of a following is something i can't relate to...

Seziertisch

What ye should be aiming to do is to be able to provide people with something to take home with them i.e. you should consider getting a couple of tunes properly recorded (i.e. representative of how good you are live) and then hand cds at your gigs for free (to begin with at least). That way people have something that they can take home, listen to themselves and more importantly play for other people.

PMI

A following happens when something happens on the stage or something is created within the crowd that people arnt used to feeling.

If you fill a venue and create an atmos that is not usually felt that is when it will happen.... if its not happening then rethink the show, songs, image etc..etc... doing a 10k recording dont mean S4it if your not pulling the numbers....

madtheory

bathroom gurgle wrote: »

the problem is we can't get people to come back to our next gigs or to look us up.

Sorry, but in that case they're just being polite. You need to try to put yourself in the punter's shows, and see what your strengths are, and play to those. This could mean changing your style, loosing a member, etc. Depends on how serious you are about making it, or if you want to just make music as art, or as a hobby. Nothing wrong with any of those options IMHO, but you need to be aware of what it is that you want to get out of it.

The Volt

Great thread guys, some posts here have been very informative to say the least.