Who to send demos to!?

grandslamsmith

Afternoon,

I just completed a fairly sizeabel demo - anyone know where, who, when, what, how to send demos to - record lables, DJ's etc, etc, etc

I have not a clue

Slam

hans aus dtschl

Step 1: Make list of people whose music you like
Step 2: Shorten the list to only include people whose style is similar to what you've just made (or that would at least have a chance of liking it!)
Step 3: Send to these people on a ONE BY ONE basis. Mass-mailouts don't work.

Have fun!

grandslamsmith

So send demos directly to people like David Holmes, Moby, Basement Jaxx etc, etc directly?

electrogrimey

Not an expert, but I would assume you'd send the demos to record companies and radio stations, not artists. What's an artists going to do with your demo? They can't give you a record contract. You'd be better off sending it to Irish record companies to whom your favourite Irish artists are signed, and to Irish dance radio stations. With a bit of local support, then go international. Maybe ask in the production forum, they'd know more.

Also, [pedant] it really should be 'To whom should I send my demo' [/pedant].

grandslamsmith

electrogrimey wrote: »

Not an expert, but I would assume you'd send the demos to record companies and radio stations, not artists. What's an artists going to do with your demo? They can't give you a record contract. You'd be better off sending it to Irish record companies to whom your favourite Irish artists are signed, and to Irish dance radio stations. With a bit of local support, then go international. Maybe ask in the production forum, they'd know more.

Also, [pedant] it really should be 'To whom should I send my demo' [/pedant].

yeah - I was thinking that! Thanks for the reply Grimey - I think Dance stations and dance people are where to go. To be honest I just write and record what pops into my head - I don't have a set style ....none that I'm aware of or set out to stick to.

If anyone can offer a comparison I'll buy 'em a beer!

Thanks again

Slam

rcaz

electrogrimey wrote: »

Not an expert, but I would assume you'd send the demos to record companies and radio stations, not artists. What's an artists going to do with your demo? They can't give you a record contract. You'd be better off sending it to Irish record companies to whom your favourite Irish artists are signed, and to Irish dance radio stations. With a bit of local support, then go international. Maybe ask in the production forum, they'd know more.

Also, [pedant] it really should be 'To whom should I send my demo' [/pedant].

[wanker]It should really be 'I'm not an expert' and 'What's an artist...'[/wanker].

R.Shackleford

why wouldnt you send it to an artist?most djs play a set everysingle night and they always want to find new tracks before everyone else.A Few of my friends produce their tracks and bring their demos with them to gigs to give to whoever is playing. Sure thats how Brodinski and dozens of others got their breaks.

Kipling

set up a soundcloud account and send your tracks through there

http://soundcloud.com

hans aus dtschl

grandslamsmith wrote: »

So send demos directly to people like David Holmes, Moby, Basement Jaxx etc, etc directly?

If holmes, moby and basement jaxx have even one track similar between them I'll be shocked. You do not sound like these three. On a track-by-track basis review what you've done.

Again:

Step 1: Make list of people whose music you like
Step 2: Shorten the list to only include people whose style is similar to what you've just made (or that would at least have a chance of liking it!)
Step 3: Send to these people on a ONE BY ONE basis. Mass-mailouts don't work.


I don't actually care if you take my advice or not.

Just reading electrogrimey's full reply there: Don't limit yourself to just Irish labels. There's few enough of them overall, let alone in each genre.

Get away from this idea of signing YOU to a label. Sign tracks to labels, as they fit.

You make a trance track, dont bring it to a deep house label: they wont release it.

Few if any labels will release an album by you, so do it on a track by track basis.


Once you have a few things signed you can worry about signing yourself to a label.

electrogrimey

R.Shackleford wrote: »

why wouldnt you send it to an artist?most djs play a set everysingle night and they always want to find new tracks before everyone else.A Few of my friends produce their tracks and bring their demos with them to gigs to give to whoever is playing. Sure thats how Brodinski and dozens of others got their breaks.

The artists the OP mentioned were live acts, like Basement Jaxx, not DJs. By all means send demos to DJs too, but I'd say the international lads would be more likely to take notice of the demo if they'd heard the big irish DJs and radio stations were playing it out.

Hypertic

We've signed tracks to a couple of pretty big labels like Resopal Schallware in Berlin and Cold Busted in America alongside some smaller ones so heres some 'industry advice'.

ll say first off dont waste your time sending tracks to djs.Yet! For the simple reason that you'll struggle to get their personal email address and they will delete it the minute they see it in their Myspace etc inbox.Wait till you sign to a label and at least then you have something behind you to mention.

''Hi im...... and I just released this EP on......''

The best thing you can do is make a 3 track EP with tracks that could be released on the one label.The reason for that is, if you send 3 different genred tracks to the same label they'll rubbish it straight away.

If you send single tracks, the first thing you'll be told is ''can I hear more of your stuff''. Also theres not much of a chance of you going from label to label signing one track at a time unless they're really good or they will be featured on a compilation.

Get some releases out on solid labels and you'd be surprised who you hear from,labels get in touch looking for tracks and then you can be more picky. Its all about building up a release profile and taking it one step at a time.
Dont sign to ANY label thats not on Beatport. As much crap as there is on that site, its what makes producers turn into regualrly booked artists because its where soo many people check for tracks.

Try have the tracks mastered before they're sent to the label. If they like the mastering job they'll release as is. If they dont they'll get the label engineer to take care of it. You want to make as good an impression as possible.

Lastly keep trying.You'll send the tracks to 30 labels and might hear from one.Just remember everyone thinks they're able to produce music until they realise the hours it takes to learn your trade and make signable tracks.Its for this reason that labels' inboxes are stufed to the brim with tracks and so you better make something that catches their attention from the get go.

Dont get disheartened and best of luck.We're not trying to sound patronising or come across like we're a big deal. Its just better to be straight and honest cos its not a fairytale give your track to Sasha and he plays it and your booked for Ibiza next year. Its extremely competitive but we're all striving for that break.And you'll deffo need some luck along the way too.

If you want to hear some of our stuff:
http://www.soundcloud.com/hypertic
http://www.myspace.com/hypertic

hans aus dtschl

Hypertic wrote: »

ll say first off dont waste your time sending tracks to djs.

theres not much of a chance of you going from label to label signing one track at a time unless they're really good or they will be featured on a compilation.

I don't agree with both of those, but you'd probably know better than me.

Few of my buddies have been signed by giving tracks to DJ's, who have then played the track and brought it to a label.

I know a few people who have released one or two tracks with a few different labels.


Again, you would know better than me on this.

Hypertic

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I don't agree with both of those, but you'd probably know better than me.

Few of my buddies have been signed by giving tracks to DJ's, who have then played the track and brought it to a label.

I know a few people who have released one or two tracks with a few different labels.


Again, you would know better than me on this.

No man Im sure it does happen. I was just thinking in terms of bigger labels. It would be a small percentage of people who would give it to a dj who listen to it and pass it on and be lucky enough to get it signed. By all means try whatever it takes to get signed I was just going from experience.

And again from experience unless its a compilation it will tend to be small labels who'll take 1 tracks from an unknown artist.

FensterDJ

posting a physical product is pretty much redundant now, oprn an account on soundcloud.com, have your tunes available for people to listen to or download if you want,

find out the names of labels, djs who might be interested in your stuff and pop your tunes in their soundcloud "dropbox" for them to listen to.

you can then also put links up to your stuff on various forums/messages boards/facebook groups etc and try to get people listening, nd if your stuff is good, they will listen

open a myspace account and do the same

franklyshocked

Regardless of how good you think your first completed track is try to get it into your head that if you keep working on producing, in six months time you're going to look back at that first track and scratch your head wondering why you liked it and pointing out all the errors.
If you don't then you haven't learned anything.
I've been doing some A&R work with a label recently and getting loads of single track demo's. Loads of people saying "this is my first track"
It really doesn't give a label a chance to see was this a flash in the pan, or can this person produce?
I fully agree with everything hypertic said above