Demos

PaulBrewer · 23-07-2010 3:33pm

maccored wrote: »

many people these days want to hear rough demos and sketches from bands.

Based on what evidence Mac ?

maccored · 23-07-2010 5:10pm

i thought it would be pretty obvious. Lookat how bands are marketing themselves, and incorporating private subscription areas where they deliver more private content that a band would normally do. My son is a beastie boys fan and he gets quite a few bits and bobs from their subscribed are. he even gets the individual instrument tracks to do mixes etc in there. Many bands going that way - smashing pumpkins, jack black and others are using the internet, video and music to market themselves in a different way than traditionally.

There is a philosophy out there that musicians need to share more with their 'fans' as the days of exclusivity and fans running round after musicians showering money on them are long gone. Fans want to get to know musicians and bands, even if thats only virtually online rather than face to face. If i had time I'd dig you out some links to that kind of thinking but unfortauntely i am but fleetingly passing through. If I find some, I'll post them up here.

MilanPan!c · 23-07-2010 5:17pm

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Based on what evidence Mac ?

I've given you evidence.

It depends on the demo and the band and the approach, but for us, like I've repeatedly stated, the positives have wildly outweighed the negatives.

We are currently planning a music video on the back of a demo, we are having another video made for us, for free, on the back of a demo, we got to record in WL, on the basis of a demo, and are getting more free recording, on the basis of demos and we found a producer who's working overtime to help us and promote us, all with demos and unfinished mixes.

You can go look in the "let's hear your music" thread and see multiple extremely positive comments about the band, and our "demos.

You can go on thumped and see people saying they'd pay for the songs.

You can go into the Alt/Indie forum and see people saying that they could hear the songs on the radio.

And yet, yet, we have no finished songs.

How, if putting unfinished stuff out there is so damaging, can all of this be happening.

How are we getting more new fans on an almost daily basis on facebook and myspace?

How have we gotten over 10K plays between SC and MS?

It seems if your dire prognostications were true we'd be fanless, we'd be getting endless complaints about quality, etc., etc.

But the exact opposite is true.

The whole project grows every day.

And we have NO finished material.

NOTHING.

Not a single finished mix.

In fact, Paul, go click this link and see what people said about Demo of Sun Keeps Beating:

http://thumped.com/bbs/showthread.php?79658-The-Riot-Tapes-Sun-Keeps-Beating-Please-feedback-folks../page2

See a lot of people saying they hate the recording or can't figure out if the song is any good?

For those unwilling to click, here's some examples:

"yep, its pretty cool. I'd deffo go buy if it was out anyways..."

"i love it!"

"I think that sounds great."

That's from three different people.

DamagedTrax · 23-07-2010 5:29pm

i have a ton of released demos from major bands and i love listening to them (the pixies in perticular spring to mind).. seems they're all doin ok for themselves..

maccored · 23-07-2010 5:41pm

i wonder though, how the whole punk revolution of the 70s would have happened if bands were overly concerned with how they presented their music, rather than just strapping on a guitar and doing it.

At the same time, I do see pauls point - theres no point in letting people hear absolute crud. If you do feel like sharing jams etc with the public, you have to make them aware that's what they are listening to.

maccored · 23-07-2010 5:43pm

MilanPan!c wrote: »

For those unwilling to click, here's some examples:

"yep, its pretty cool. I'd deffo go buy if it was out anyways..."

"i love it!"

"I think that sounds great."

That's from three different people.

thats the beauty of the internet - its easy to say these things. personally i've found that many who*say* they'd buy something, dont actually do that when its released.

MilanPan!c · 23-07-2010 5:49pm

maccored wrote: »

thats the beauty of the internet - its easy to say these things. personally i've found that many who*say* they'd buy something, dont actually do that when its released.

Of course.

But it would be just as easy to trash it... and people aren't, by and large, trashing our stuff...

...and it's not because people are nice to strangers on the internet... right?

Rockshamrover · 23-07-2010 5:51pm

DamagedTrax wrote: »

i have a ton of released demos from major bands and i love listening to them (the pixies in perticular spring to mind).. seems they're all doin ok for themselves..

Very true. Just look at soundcloud. Over a million members posting music of varying production quality. The majority of which are demos.

maccored · 23-07-2010 5:52pm

@ MilanPan!c - haha. you have a point. i just question the actual value of the information one gets like that online.

MilanPan!c · 23-07-2010 6:05pm

maccored wrote: »

@ MilanPan!c - haha. you have a point. i just question the actual value of the information one gets like that online.

I do of course.

I know that we're only just starting out, etc., and that niceties != sales.

But I think that in our case, we have pretty consistent evidence that releasing demos isn't setting potential fans against us and that in fact we're getting good feedback and growing our fan base, things we couldn't be doing at this point if we weren't using demos.

I agree that really **** sounding recordings are not a great way to represent your product, but I disagree that only putting up pristine professional recordings will get you fans, or that demos will set people irredeemably against your product.

Well, at least for us, will our songs, and our recordings and our approach, that is not true.

That's all I can speak to, with any authority.

Rockshamrover · 23-07-2010 6:19pm

MilanPan!c wrote: »

I do of course.

I know that we're only just starting out, etc., and that niceties != sales.

But I think that in our case, we have pretty consistent evidence that releasing demos isn't setting potential fans against us and that in fact we're getting good feedback and growing our fan base, things we couldn't be doing at this point if we weren't using demos.

I agree that really **** sounding recordings are not a great way to represent your product, but I disagree that only putting up pristine professional recordings will get you fans, or that demos will set people irredeemably against your product.

Well, at least for us, will our songs, and our recordings and our approach, that is not true.

That's all I can speak to, with any authority.

I think the other point on this is that you have built up a rapport/relationship with your listeners.

They understand that what you're doing now isn't the finished product but are buying into what you are and who you will be.

They can see the potential.

To be honest all this whole debate shows is that both approaches can work, there is merit in both Paul's "get it right first" approach and in Chris's "lets see where this takes us" approach.

Neither approach can guarantee success unfortunately:(

PaulBrewer · 23-07-2010 6:34pm

MilanPan!c wrote: »

I disagree that only putting up pristine professional recordings will get you fans.

And who said that ?

TelePaul · 23-07-2010 7:27pm

I really don't think you can attach any significant value to MySpace views, YouTube views, whatever, as a metric it accrues too casually.

Rockshamrover · 23-07-2010 7:36pm

TelePaul wrote: »

I really don't think you can attach any significant value to MySpace views, YouTube views, whatever, as a metric it accrues too casually.

That's true to a certain extent, but if you are getting a few hundred hits a day that's a significant indicator that you're doing something right.

Wasn't that the way Arctic Monkeys got their break?

Either that or you have fantastic looking women in your video:D (this could also mean you're doing something right)

MilanPan!c · 23-07-2010 7:37pm

TelePaul wrote: »

I really don't think you can attach any significant value to MySpace views, YouTube views, whatever, as a metric it accrues too casually.

It's a pretty reliable relative metric though.

One band relative to another.

It's hard to say what the numbers mean in isolation, but not relatively.

TelePaul · 23-07-2010 7:44pm

MilanPan!c wrote: »

It's a pretty reliable relative metric though.

One band relative to another.

It's hard to say what the numbers mean in isolation, but not relatively.

I think all it really measures is how many friends or relatives you have versus another band. I like music but I don't troll myspace to give out kudos to random bands.

maccored · 23-07-2010 8:10pm

Rockshamrover wrote: »

Wasn't that the way Arctic Monkeys got their break?

I dont think so - great soundbytes for media, but i think *maybe* the arcade fire, OK GO! and a few other bands pushed themselves online successfully in their early stages, but most stories of bands ebcoming famous due to myspace etc is a mixture of hype, media fodder and a bit of advertising for whatever site these bands get 'discovered' on.

I cant remember who it was that apparently got signed due to her web broadcasts from her bedsit that where apparently pulling in thousands - but they never explained just how a domestic broadband connection could handle that kind of traffic.

TelePaul · 23-07-2010 8:12pm

maccored wrote: »

I dont think so - great soundbytes for media, but i think *maybe* the arcade fire, OK GO! and a few other bands pushed themselves online successfully in their early stages, but most stories of bands ebcoming famous due to myspace etc is a mixture of hype, media fodder and a bit of advertising for whatever site these bands get 'discovered' on.

I cant remember who it was that apparently got signed due to her web broadcasts from her bedsit that where apparently pulling in thousands - but they never explained just how a domestic broadband connection could handle that kind of traffic.

You make a lot of sense man. I had also heard that Artic Monkeys etc were the product of a clever orchestrated marketing push.

PaulBrewer · 23-07-2010 8:20pm

maccored wrote: »

I dont think so - great soundbytes for media, but i think *maybe* the arcade fire, OK GO! and a few other bands pushed themselves online successfully in their early stages, but most stories of bands ebcoming famous due to myspace etc is a mixture of hype, media fodder and a bit of advertising for whatever site these bands get 'discovered' on.

I cant remember who it was that apparently got signed due to her web broadcasts from her bedsit that where apparently pulling in thousands - but they never explained just how a domestic broadband connection could handle that kind of traffic.

Lily Allen !

Rockshamrover · 23-07-2010 8:20pm

maccored wrote: »

I dont think so - great soundbytes for media, but i think *maybe* the arcade fire, OK GO! and a few other bands pushed themselves online successfully in their early stages, but most stories of bands ebcoming famous due to myspace etc is a mixture of hype, media fodder and a bit of advertising for whatever site these bands get 'discovered' on.

I cant remember who it was that apparently got signed due to her web broadcasts from her bedsit that where apparently pulling in thousands - but they never explained just how a domestic broadband connection could handle that kind of traffic.

You're right, I just checked. Seemingly their fans set up their myspace page and it did go gaga.

Strangely enough their initial success came about because of a demo they recorded to give away to fans at their gigs.

PaulBrewer · 23-07-2010 8:28pm

Rockshamrover wrote: »

You're right, I just checked. Seemingly their fans set up their myspace page and it did go gaga.

Strangely enough their initial success came about because

.... they were shyt hot - and had a singer with style, personality and individuality and wrote about things that were relevant to their audience !

maccored · 23-07-2010 8:28pm

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Lily Allen !

ooh. thats a difficult one as its hard to say if her myspace presence grew before or after signing to Regal. Still, wasnt her mum and dad pretty well connected anyway, one being a film producer and the other an actor/musician? Im sure that helped more than myspace.

Rockshamrover · 23-07-2010 8:29pm

PaulBrewer wrote: »

.... they were shyt hot - and had a singer with style, personality and individuality and wrote about things that were relevant to their audience !

Ha ha, that may have had something to do with it too.

seannash · 24-07-2010 1:24pm

oooppps thought you were talking about soundcloud not thumped,my bad

MilanPan!c · 24-07-2010 1:38pm

I totally agree that's it's almost impossible to have success based on myspace views, etc.

Again, I think it's much more about songs/singer.

PMI · 24-07-2010 3:45pm

one thing that I learned in our release recently is as stated above alot of people who say they are your fans, and have watched you for years dont actually buy your stuff they kinda expect it for free for following you.

We phoned a venue and said we are gonna pop in and play for an hour on wed night, the place was wedged, management had a great night and as the band did the rounds we realised that the people we took for granted that we thought had bought it actually hadent

We lost out on 430 downloads in our 1st week due to a download prob... which was the diff between our 24 entry and around 12 that week....

you need thousands and thousands of true fans to make things happen.

We have 7k facebook fans, not sure about myspace as its for children and to many fake friend adders and we hit 24, admittedly we still no:1 in download chart but thats just to tell your friends about.

Lastly thank god our track sounds the way it does as it stands side by side with all the american artists of the moment, earlier today on the wireless it was California Gurls and then US and then Kesha and it stood up 100% against them.

Thanks god it didnt sound like a demo

PaulBrewer · 24-07-2010 11:36pm

PMI wrote: »

Thanks god it didnt sound like a demo

I thank you ...:o

MilanPan!c · 25-07-2010 12:00am

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I thank you ...:o

To be clear, I would never advocate releasing a demo or demo sounding product...

krd · 25-07-2010 9:56pm

MilanPan!c wrote: »

To be clear, I would never advocate releasing a demo or demo sounding product...

I think you're wrong. Polly Harvey's 4-track demos was better than the Steve Albini album. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-Track_Demos At least one of the songs had Polly Beating a leather seat cushion as a bass drum.

There was a lot of stuff done through the whole grunge thing that was very amateurishly recorded but sounded great, if you liked that kind of stuff. The best stuff I ever heard Dinosaur Jr do was the demos on various EPs. Not the "polished" studio releases.

Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Tapes is the best thing she ever did. Any of her studio stuff just sounded sterile.

Mistakes and stuff can make it sound like there's real band there and not just a computer.

If every guitar strum sounds the same as the last it just doesn't sound interesting.

MilanPan!c · 25-07-2010 11:06pm

@KRD

To be even more clear.

4 Track Demos is amazing. I love it. One of my favourite PJ Harvey things.

In fact, we considered covering, "Ghosts".

The thing is though, none of those recordings were ever released to te radio etc... For good reason.

And that's what I meant.

Demos

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