The remit for the score was very broad – basically, write what I thought was appropriate. My first idea was to write an upbeat Punk song but I quickly discarded this idea in favour of something Spanish to tie the new story to the original story of Don Quixote, which is set in medieval Spain. I already had a Spanish style chord progression I had been toying with for some time and now I had finally found a use for it.

The first problem I encountered was the fact that the film was not yet finished and I had only a vague idea of what to expect. I decided that the best way to tackle this problem was to write a piece of music with several different parts which would allow me to place them in different scenes. These parts would need to convey different moods, be easily lengthened or shortened and be able to fit together in any order.

I took my original idea to the other musicians I was working with at the time and over the next week or two wrote a song with six distinct sections -

1. Verse consisting of Spanish Guitar and vocals
2. Chorus consisting of Spanish Guitar and vocals
3. Instrumental section with Spanish Guitar
4. Space-y midsection with string and synth sounds
5. Heavy verse with overdriven electric guitar
6. Fast finale

I got the idea for Section Four (i.e. playing the verse with an overdriven electric guitar rather an acoustic guitar) from the Doors ‘Spanish Caravan’ which uses a similar technique. (By the way, you can receive an MP3 of ‘Turning’ – soundtrack to the film ‘Windmills’ – by writing to info@shadowplay-collective.com)

Eventually I received a rough cut of the film and began to restructure the song to fit with what was happening in each scene. Fortunately the musical ideas I started with fitted well and I really only had to lengthen and shorten the different parts to fit the scenes. I sent my ideas off to the producer who said he liked them so I began tightening up the music to fit with the action – a dramatic pause here and a building of tension there. I was pleased with the results so far and sent the second draft back to the producer. Again he said he liked it, but asked if I could drop out Section Three completely, as it interfered with the dialogue. I was slightly annoyed about this as I had spent quite sometime creating many subtle variations for this section. However, I bowed to his greater experience and took the section out.

I thought that the score was finished but the Writer/Director began to make suggestions. He didn’t think the ending was powerful enough. He wanted it more like the soundtrack to the movie ‘Speed’. Wanting to do the best job I could, I dutifully acquired the sound track and attempted to emulate some of the drama by adding some kettle drum rolls. “Better but not quite there,” he said. I added a tambourine playing sixteenth notes to give a sense of speed and acceleration. “Getting there, but could do with more drama” he commented. After several more attempts, in which I added orchestra stabs and a distorted guitar, we finally agreed that there was enough tension and the score was finally complete!

A week or two later I received the final cut complete with music. I was very pleased with the end result. But what was this? The section I had been asked to take out had been put back in but only as a repeated sample of music! All the work I had done creating subtle changes and nuances wiped out and replaced with the same piece of music looped over and over. I was not happy but I let it go. I had done my bit to the best of my ability and for a first attempt at writing a film score I felt I had not done badly at all.

The film enjoyed a short release mainly playing at art house cinemas with myself and the singer playing an acoustic version of the song on the opening night. It has also been shown several times on the local television network.

Writing this film score was not the easiest thing I have ever done in my music career. I was lucky that the remit I was given to work with was so wide I could do just about anything I liked. However, trying to please both the producer and the writer/director and to reproduce their ideas in a musical form was sometimes very difficult and frustrating.

So what have I learned from this experience and what advice would I give to would-be musicians/score writers?

• Take a chance, as I did when I approached the TV Company, and get your music out there because nobody is going to discover you in your bedroom
• Say ‘yes’ first then work out how you will do it later
• Follow up every opportunity as you never know where it will lead. It was only by taking part in the multi-media event that I later got the opportunity to write the film score
• Be open to criticism – don’t just disregard it out of hand as sometimes other people’s opinions can be really helpful even if it’s not meant to be. The writer/director and I did not always agree but we both had the same goal in mind – a great film

And after all this would I put myself through this all again? You bet.

To receive an MP3 of ‘Turning’ (soundtrack to the film ‘Windmills’) please write to info@shadowplay-collective.com

About the author

Ian Hand is a founder member of the Shadowplay Collective and has been writing and performing for music twenty years. He is currently a student of Tom Hess.

© 2008 Shadowplay Collective

Despite the importance of the Internet to commerce, CD sales through “brick and mortar” stores are still important. National distribution, rather than consignment, is the only practical way to service the big chains like Borders, Tower, and HMV. Although you must cultivate the relationship between yourself and the stores, successful distribution takes into account the entire marketplace. This marketplace is a fluid set of symbiotic relationships between yourself and radio, press, public relations, advertising, venues, the Internet, distribution companies, stores, manufacturers, vendors, and other musical acts in your genre.

Your job is to create a brand, an image, and a story that will engage all of these elements in the service of finding your audience. There is no guarantee that money invested in distribution will be recouped solely through CD sales. However, the prestige of national distribution is a career builder that will enhance your other efforts to make a living. Work smart, be honest with yourself, and hope for the best. But be prepared for some disappointment and failure along the way.

Getting Started

Before seeking distribution for your album, I suggest that you acquire a budget and start your own record label. You’ll be dealing with other businesses and it’s best to be on equal footing with them. Also, when your employees look to you for daily direction, you’re forced to focus your goals. I decided I’d found WaterBoat Music and hired a business-and-marketing team. Kimball Packard came aboard as manager and Louise Miller as administrative assistant. My wife, Jenny Mikesell, an accomplished website designer and graphic artist, worked as the art director.

To record my CD Trust, I hired a production-and-recording team. Berklee grad Dave Locke ’93 engineered and mastered the project. Players included other alumni like guitarist Kevin Barry ’88 (Paula Cole, Mary Chapin Carpenter) and bassist Mike Rivard ’85 (Jonatha Brooke), as well as former Del Fuegos drummer Woody Giessmann. Independent radio guru David Avery of Powderfinger Promotions was hired to work Trust to Triple-A and college radio.

While we made the recording, I searched for a distributor. There where problems. The two elements that distributors look for when negotiating with an artist are extensive touring and a previous track record of CD sales. Because of my commitments to teaching, I couldn’t tour to support distribution. And while my first CD This Distant Light had garnered a Boston Music Award nomination, I had no sales record.

To make up for this deficit, I crafted a marketing plan that highlighted my strengths, drawing upon the entrepreneurial concepts outlined in my book, Making Music Your Day Job. My marketing plan featured a $10,000 budget and focused on national radio airplay, advertising, regional gigs, in-store and in-station performances, and various guerilla marketing techniques. (Visit www.waterboat.com to download a PDF version of the complete proposal.) I sent my proposal out to five distributors, and in December of 2000 I signed an exclusive deal with Goldenrod/Horizon. What made them sign me when others had turned me down? In part, they loved my music. But essentially, they liked my marketing plan and our $10,000 budget.

Before signing me, Goldenrod had presented my proposal to their single largest client, Borders Books & Music, to get their opinion. Their national folk music buyer agreed to take an order, and, based on that promise, I got the deal. I had used my powers of persuasion and business expertise to circumvent the key requirements of a typical distribution deal. Would that fact ultimately hurt me? Marketing plans aside, Trust would have to prove its worth at the cash register. If it couldn’t, WaterBoat Music would be dropped. I decided to risk it.

Be Careful What You Wish For

One day we had no deal and were alone. The next day, we had a deal that involved lots of other people. We now had primary relationships with both the national and regional sales representatives at Goldenrod plus the field marketing manager from Borders. Soon we would develop additional relationships with new performance venues, advertising sales reps, shipping companies, and more.

Suddenly, we had to factor everyone’s schedules and turnaround times into our own plan and things became very complicated. The radio campaign and retail release dates had to be coordinated with all other efforts, including gigs, advertising, and in-store promotion. But it didn’t work out that way. Since we signed the deal in early December, we missed the holiday buying season completely. Major listening rooms book four to six months in advance, so January, March, and April were unavailable to us.

It didn’t make sense to do in-stores and in-stations unless we could support the efforts with advertising and we hadn’t had time to negotiate ad rates, design our print ads, and produce the radio advertising spots. The listening post program at Borders—a key part of our plan—was booked until at least April. It looked like May 1 was our earliest possible start date, but if we waited until May, college radio stations would be winding down for summer break. We decided to forge ahead with a January radio and retail release and work hard to put everything else in place by May. (see sequence of events below)

Trust went to stores in mid-January and Powderfinger worked radio from January 23 to March 12. All in all, we got the CD played on almost 200 stations nationwide. It was a great start. But managing the details was often problematic. Little things snowballed into an avalanche. For example, our first order was two weeks late while we were setting up a FedEx Ground account and frantically designing our point of purchase (P.O.P.) stickers that said “all profits to benefit the Sierra Club.”

While this minor disaster unfolded, we scrambled to call venues, radio stations and the press, design print ads, fix our computer system, update the website, play gigs, send out packages, do interviews, and book in-stores. We were often completely overwhelmed. Finally, May arrived—a full two and a half years after the recording sessions began—our modified marketing plan was in full swing.

Cash on the Barrelhead

The following represents investments I made to support the distribution deal.

• Recording $30,000
• Staffing $10,000
• Radio promo $3,000
• Radio commercials $1,000
• Specialty packaging $1,000
• Total: $45,000

At $7.50 per copy, I must sell 6134 copies to recoup my hard-dollar expenditures. These costs are actual money invested and do not include promotional copies of the CD given to venues, the press, or radio, nor do they include product credit payment of the listening post program at Borders. To date, I am far from recouping my investment via CD sales.

However, all is not lost. My main goal to first establish brand name identity has been successful. Some of the direct, non-sales oriented results of working my distribution deal are as follows:

• More people have heard of me, and heard my music.
• My press kit commands increased respect.
• I’m now able to play key venues and better rooms.
• I’m playing in new markets, including New York City and London, England.
• I’m a more informed and valuable teacher to my students.

I set my sights high and have succeeded in some realms, failed in others, but at the end of the day, I asked and answered questions that were important to me. This has clarified my artistic vision, and increased the scope of my work. The process of working my distribution deal changed and challenged the way I felt about my music, my goals and the industry in general. It was exhilarating, frustrating, and a real learning experience.

Kevin’s Top 10 Hits

1. Get Radio Active
The advent of low-cost digital recording technology has flooded the market with releases. Radio station music directors now rely more heavily on indie promoters they trust to help them program. Unless you are extremely good on the phone and know the radio business, hire a good promoter. Even though I was a music director at a radio station, I found it was best to let a pro help me out.

Develop an effective mailing package that will help you break through the clutter at radio stations. Use radio airplay to increase sales, press, and touring. We sent the weekly radio airplay reports to Goldenrod so they could service stores in national markets where Trust was receiving heavy or medium rotation.

2. You Can’t Eat Good Press
While important, press coverage does not necessarily translate into CD sales. The industry is filled with artists who languish in the “critically acclaimed” ghetto. That being said, you’ll need press before you release your CD on its “street date.”

During the production of Trust I invited members of the Boston press to lunch and then join us while we mixed a tune. We also made 50 “one-offs” and sent them out to the national press to get pre-release coverage. Develop a philosophy of consistency when dealing with the press. For example, on the finished CD booklet, incorporate your picture into the cover art. When you start to get press, control your image by only allowing them to use your CD cover. That way, when people see your CD in stores, they’ll recognize it from an article they read about it. These concepts are road tested and they work.

We had reviews, profiles, and feature cover stories in Billboard, ASCAP Playback, Gig magazine, the Boston Globe, the Boston Tab, and numerous other publications.

3. P.R. Is Good Business
Public relations is the process of building goodwill for your brand in the public eye. Supporting a good cause is a great way to do this. I decided to donate all profits from the sale of Trust to the American Liver Foundation and the Sierra Club, and this has opened quite a few doors for the project. Because I teach entrepreneurship and career planning at Berklee, we also targeted the business editors of nonmusical publications. As a musician, entrepreneur and educator, I am somewhat anomolous in the nine-to-five world. Go where your competitors aren’t and reap the rewards of being a rare find.

4. Get the Word Out
Public-relations efforts go hand in hand with your advertising campaign. We focused our advertising on the listening posts at six Boston-area Borders stores, where customers could listen to the CD through headphones. This type of program is paid for in product credit rather than hard dollars. One month at listening posts “cost” WaterBoat Music $1,071 in product credit. This means that at $7.50 per CD, Goldenrod and Borders keep the proceeds from the first 143 copies of Trust sold.

As part of the Borders listening post program, we also received 15 “free” 60-second commercials on The River 92.5, a great local Triple-A station. We decided to boost the 15 ads with additional commercials to promote gigs and various in-store performances.

To retain control of my image and message, I produced the ads. Berklee alumnus Scott Miller edited cuts from Trust into a commercial bed, I wrote the copy, and station DJs did the voice-overs. For maximized impact, it’s essential that advertising be seen and heard in as many different mediums as possible. Our May ad campaign included radio, print, and the Internet, with a focus on live gigs.

5. For Every Season, Tour, Tour, Tour
Marketing efforts, even very successful ones, are no substitute for live shows. David Tamulevich, a prominent national booking agent, suggests a touring schedule of 225 to 250 nights a year. Touring is actually the best opportunity you have for selling your CDs to a motivated, excited audience. Berklee alumnus Bob Malone set up a merchant account with Visa, and his live-show CD sales have increased significantly.

Ironically, great press and radio airplay can help propel you beyond your capacity. As you start to play bigger and better rooms, it’s tougher to fill seats. Be realistic: if you need to take a step back and work as an opening act, do it.

If you’re serious about a career as an original artist, though, cover gigs can drain your energy and credibility. I strongly suggest making every effort to talk to those in charge of venues before sending your package. Have an honest discussion with them. Don’t be afraid to turn down a gig that’s not right for you; if nothing else, you’ll be memorable! If I were 25, I’d start a band, rent a cheap house in the woods, make a CD, buy a van and hit the road. I’d support the effort with a marketing plan and a great website.

6. Weave a Big Web
Use a professionally designed website that is commercially viable and reinforces your brand. All marketing and advertising should drive traffic to your website. To encourage return traffic, update the site with new songs and new content. The Web is not a static medium. Unless you’re getting thousands of hits a month, it doesn’t make sense to fulfill your own orders. Link your site to CD Baby or Amazon and let them do it; they have the traffic.

Your site should be easy to navigate and unburdened by huge sound or picture files. I post short Real Player song samples on my site and provide a link to my MP3 page for bigger files. My entire first CD, featuring Ellis Paul, Catie Curtis and Duke Levine, is online. I have only 20 copies left, and rather than manufacture more, I give it away in MP3 format. If people dig the music, maybe they’ll come back and purchase Trust. Check out the “Free Goodies” link at www.waterboat.com for details.

Put your gig listings in the table format that allows Musi-Cal and other performance search engines to offload the information automatically to save you from duplicated effort. Register your website with the main search engines. You’ll have to update it every six months to remain current. The Internet is the ultimate guerilla marketing vehicle that allows you to subvert the status quo.

7. Work for Bananas
Branding efforts that are highly creative and cost effective are an essential part of a guerilla marketing campaign. We made a strategic alliance with Club Passim, which has a 15,000-person mailing list for their music schedule newsletter. In exchange for a discount on ad space, we committed to donating 50 percent of the purchase price of my CD to their music education fund. All a customer had to do was write “Club Passim” in the memo section of their check and send it directly to us.

8. Star Wars, Culture Wars
There is a strong interrelationship between press, radio airplay, touring, the clout of your distributor, the strength of your live show, your “buzz” factor, and that ineffable psycho-sexual, gender-war, political, what-is-hip, who-is-hot miasma of fear and loathing we call pop “culture.” Fueling this hot-rod race of fame seekers is cold, hard cash—the more the better. Be prepared to grease the wheels of commerce in the form of advertising, packaging, videos, shelf fees, touring, product give-aways, and other forms of promo.

Country and r&b music are the big sellers. If you’re in these categories, you’re competing with serious star power and huge corporate budgets. If not, set your sights on modest sales appropriate to your genre. Selling 20,000 units would represent big numbers for a contemporary singer/songwriter but would get a pop artist canned.

According to the New Yorker magazine critic Nick Hornby, a recent Billboard top 10 list of bestselling albums includes the song titles, “Bad Boy for Life,” “American Psycho,” and “Pimp Like Me.” If you’re not writing songs that celebrate rampant consumerism, sexism, and the machismo of violence, your potential audience just got smaller. Way smaller.

9. It’s a Big Country, Pilgrim
Remember, it’s your distributor who’s national, not you. Goldenrod focused their placement of Trust in Boston and in select stores nationwide that did well with folk music. That’s fine, because I didn’t have the budget to promote every market properly. Initially, I wanted to do the national listening post program at Borders, which has 350 stores. I would have needed 350 listening-post CDs plus five copies for each store for a total of 2,100 CDs. Because I only had 2,000 CDs to start with, I would have had to manufacture 1,000 more to meet my other needs. Borders wisely suggested I start small, and if sales were hot I could grow into a national campaign. Keep in mind that when your inventory goes into a distribution network, it ties up your capital investment for a long time.

10. It’s Mine, All Mine!
If you’re signed to a label, they will pay up-front costs for recording and some marketing. But they’re merely loaning you money that you pay back through recoupables—a convoluted process that never favors the artist. It’s better to own your own company. Quite frankly, if you’re not willing to make that investment, why should anyone else? Besides, the payback on the other end is potentially better.

Take selling CDs from the stage as an example. If I were on another label, I’d have to pay them wholesale rates for my own work. At a sale price of $15, I might net $7 and pay them $8. But with WaterBoat Music, I get the entire $15. Plus, I have the flexibility to set special sale pricing.

At a recent show, my pricing went like this.

• $15 – Buy 1 CD, get a free tape
• $20 – Buy 1 CD, get a free CD
• $25 – Buy 2 CDs, get a free tape.

That night, I made more on CD sales than I did at the door. And in the End…

After working my deal hard for nine months, I continue to build on what I’ve made. There are no easy solutions and it’s definitely a work in progress! Our industry is not for the faint of heart or the empty of pocket. But as long as we’re willing to invest in our careers, we’ll always have a future in the music business. Only time will tell if it’s worth it in the end.

A well maintained and growing email list is a mighty tool. Why? Because it provides a quick and easy way to keep in front of your adoring fans, and it is absolutely FREE.

The sad thing is most artists drop the ball on building this marketing powerhouse. So, in an effort to stop this atrocity, I decided to give you four simple and effective tactics to build that list.

1. Migidy Mic Check…

Your standing on stage, maybe the beach balls are floating atop the crowd, or the mosh pit has attracted the state police, or maybe the fans are singing so loud you can’t hear your stage monitors. Whatever your situation, the fact of the matter is that you have human beings sitting right in front of you, hanging off of your every word, wanting to become your fans.

Do you realize the power of this moment? Right now your audience is focused on one thing – you. And as hard as it may be to believe, at this very moment, more than anything else, they want more of you. How do you give them what they want? Speak up and offer to get connected.

Tell your audience in your own genuine words that your email list is the way you stay connected to your fans. It is how you pass on latest news and how you notify of your upcoming gigs.

Simple and effective. Do not let one gig pass without asking your fans to get connected.

2. Give it away now…

Ok, you know the value of seizing the moment while you’re at the microphone, now lets make signing up a little more enticing.

Do you like free stuff? Who doesn’t? We are suckers for trinkets and giveaways. Now just imagine if you were to offer your fans an opportunity to get something more valuable than a mere trinket. What if you offered them the opportunity to win one of your T-shirts or autographed CDs, or [wait for it…] Both! Oh my, the pandemonium, the crowd goes nuts.

How would this work? Simply hold a contest where the entry form is a piece of paper that asks for your fan’s first name and email address. It’s that simple. You exchange the chance to win one CD (your cost under $2) and a T-shirt (your cost around $5) in exchange for the email address of the members of your audience. If the cost of giving away a few pieces of much merch bothers you, just think of the value of only one new fan dragging a friend to your next show, shelling out two covers charges, selling a t-shirt to the friend and both of them telling others at work about their experience… Lets move on.

3. Something Of Value

Ask yourself what the real objective of the contest mentioned above is? Let me tell you plainly, the objective is to mutually exchange something of value. You offer something of value to your fans in exchange for something of value to you. A surprisingly high value item to your fans is a simple old-fashioned newsletter. You know, the thing with silly facts and stories about you? Offer this gem in exchange for something of value to you – your fan’s email address. This is an easy sell because you need their email address to send the newsletter right? It is a natural win-win situation so use it.

4. Point of Sale

Now were at the end of the show and people are flocking to your merch table. Your latest self-titled CD is flying off the shelf. Your fans are even picking up that illegible sticker that was designed by your crazy cousin Fred. Are you going to just let them walk away without offering them the chance to stay connected to the band that they just layed down their hard earned cash to buy a recording of?

You have a perfect opportunity while you are counting out their change to “ask them” to sign your concert connection and stay connected to the band. What’s the worse they can do, say no?

There you go four tactics you can use tonight to pack fans into your mighty email list. That should get you going. Remember it is the simple and effective tactics performed flawlessly over and over that make you successful. Don’t miss a beat and watch that email list grow.

As to the studio thing, let me first relate a little analogy from a book by one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett. If you haven’t read him, you should, he’s hilarious.

Anyway, one of his characters is a guardsman. While the author is talking about the guardsman, he also says something very enlightening about his boots. Let’s say we have two guardsmen, one from a poor family, with a wife and kids to feed at home. He buys $20.00 boots. Our other guardsman is from a wealthy family, with no wife and kids, and he buys $200.00 boots. $20.00 boots last about a year, if you are willing to walk around with holes in the soles for the last six months or so, because $20.00 boots come with crummy soles, and are not worth re-soling. New soles would cost almost as much as new boots.

$200.00 boots, on the other hand, will last a lifetime, if properly cared for. Anytime they need new soles, they are certainly worth it, because they are good quality boots, and cost much less to re-sole than replace. Also, the original soles, and consequently the replacements, are of much better quality, and will last maybe three or four years.

So, over the course of a twenty-year career, the guy with the $20.00 pair of boots buys 20 pair, for a total of $400.00. The guy with the $200.00 pair of boots buys one pair, plus maybe six re-soles. Let’s say re-soles cost $15.00 apiece. This brings his total to $290.00.

Not only does the guy with the cheap boots pay more, he also walks around with wet feet half the time, because of the holes.

How does this relate to studios, you may be asking? Well, it’s surprisingly simple, once you think about it, but it took me awhile to figure it out, too.

Over here in Studio A, you have a guy that is charging $25.00 an hour. Over there in Studio B, you have a guy that is charging $75.00 an hour. (A mid level rate, although it may seem low to those of you in New York or LA)

Why the difference? Is our man in Studio A just too stupid to realize what he could be charging for studio time? Maybe he’s just a humanitarian, and wants to help us poor musicians? Probably not. (But if you meet one of the humanitarians, let me know).

Probably the reason Studio A is less expensive is because he has less experience, less and/or inferior equipment, or maybe because his “control room” is his bedroom and you record in his living room. Probably all of the above.

At Studio B, however, you get to record in a real studio that was designed to be a studio. You get professional level equipment that includes much more in the way of outboard gear, mics, isolation panels, rooms, etc. You get a real, experienced engineer, instead of someone that bought some gear to do their own recording, and then decided to try and make some money with it.

At Studio A, you may find yourself waiting, and waiting, while the “engineer” tries to get a drum or bass sound that will make the drummer or bassist happy. Or, worse yet, he may try and try, and finally give up, saying something like “Oh well, we’ll fix it in the mix.” (Don’t ever fall for that one!) Then, don’t forget, he has the other instruments to do.

Remember, someone is paying for all this time he is spending trying to get a sound. If he spends an hour setting up and getting a sound on the instruments, the price of the first hour of actual recording has just doubled. Sometimes it can take longer than that. If he takes a little over two hours setting up, you’re up to the rate of Studio B for your first hour, and that is just in your first hour of actual recording. (Remember, Studio B has to do a little setup too, he’s just much faster at it.)

Then take into account that each tune you record is likely to have different requirements, so he is probably going to have to do more setup, and since he is not experienced, it is going to take longer than it should. Time flies when you are paying for it.

I’m sure you get the picture, here. The engineer should be a help, not a hindrance. Unfortunately, I’ve run into all too many situations where the “engineer” is the most expensive thing, time-wise, in the whole process.

Oh, and lest I forget, a good engineer speaks when spoken to, at least when it comes to your tunes, unless you have hired him to be the producer, as well. Too many of these $25.00 an hour guys will hardly shut up. The best engineer I’ve ever worked with kept his mouth resolutely shut, and then, when asked, invariably came up with something brilliant. More about him later.

Okay, so let’s say you’ve endured all that, gotten all your tunes down to tape or disk, and now it’s time for that magical thing; mix down. You will finally be able to do and hear better than the rough mix, hear the way it is supposed to sound. By merely tweaking a few knobs, Presto! That sound you’ve had in your head all along, the reason you were inspired to purchase studio time in the first place.

So, you start in on the first tune. As you begin to fine-tune the mix, you notice a peculiar “Thwump, Thwump!” sound to the kick drum. You isolate the kick, and hear a definitely unacceptable level of distortion. You look, and see the needle on that channel is in danger of breaking off as it hits the right side of the meter every time the kick drum sounds. Wham! Wham! Wham! You look at the “engineer”, he looks innocently back, and obligingly turns the kick down. Now you have the same distortion, only quieter. What happened? He has recorded the kick drum too hot, probably because he was listening on headphones while you recorded, and had the wrong source selected.

You now have three choices. A) Re-record the kick, which may take hours, because he may have done this on the whole album, (And your drummer is probably not used to playing kick solo with band accompaniment, although he may have fantasized about it), or B) turn the kick down in the mix, and wimpify your whole sound, while not really fixing the problem; it will leap out at you at every quiet passage, and always will, every time you listen to the recording, even if your non-musician friends will seem unable to hear it, or C) leave it as it is, put it as high in the mix as you wanted, and hope, (or claim) you are starting a new trend.

Okay, now, somehow you’ve gotten beyond the kick problem, but since it was the concern of the moment, you have, up until now, hardly paid any attention to your bass sound. Now you start to listen to it, really listen, and at first you are relieved because at least you don’t have the problem of having been recorded too hot. No sir, no distortion there! But then, you begin to really listen, and you realize it’s kind of thumpy, without much high end or definition. Definitely not what you had in mind! Well, guess what. You can always take highs away, but you can’t put ‘em there if they weren’t there in the first place. The best you can do is take lows away, and boost the gain, which will leave you with a louder, thinner sound, but not at all the big, round, bright-but-full sound you always knew your bass had in it.

I could go on and on about the problems with cheap studios. (No doubt many of you think I already have; I’ve only scratched the surface, believe me!)

Now, I’ve promised you more about the best engineer with which I’ve ever worked. He is also a bass player, by the name of Doug Rayburn, and for you older, more esoteric types, of “Pavlov’s Dog” fame. (He also owned the Mellotron that had belonged to the Beatles; on one of the tape racks, the lowest key played the solo guitar intro to “Bungalow Bill”. For those of you that don’t know what a Mellotron is, or “Bungalow Bill”, or maybe even who the Beatles are, forget it, I’m not going to bother, at least not right now. If you really want to know, ask me later.)

Anyway, as I said before, he always kept his mouth shut unless asked. This was not because he didn’t have anything to say; this was because, no matter the fact that he probably actually was a superior musician to any of us at the time, he realized it was not his place to say anything, unless asked. After all, it was not his project, nor did he write any of the tunes. However, as I said, when asked, he almost invariably came up with an opinion incredibly apt and helpful.

The best thing he ever did, however, was to just sit there and say nothing when we said we were going to run a tune down to warm up. Some of you may know I’ve mentioned this before, but this was a wonderful thing, and deserves a second mention. When you are just running a tune down to warm up, you have no reason to be nervous; it is not going to be recorded for posterity. Rather, it is just you and your band mates blowing off some nervous steam, and warming up. So you have that wonderful combination between nervous and relaxed, not anxious, but perhaps a little giddy. And it is often at this point that wonderful things happen. Since you know it is just you and the other band members, and you are just warming up, you take risks you might not ordinarily take, or at least risks you would never take while recording.

So we would run the tune down, be satisfied with the way it went, and say “Okay, we’re ready to do a take!”, and he’d say “No, don’t bother, that was it.”. You’d be amazed at how often he was able to pull that “trick” on us, and, how good those takes were. I miss him! Doug, if you’re out there, thank you!

Anyway, I could go on much longer, but I think most of you have the idea. “Expensive” studio time usually really isn’t. Don’t try to save money by skimping on your studio rate. Of course, I am also not saying that all expensive studios are good. If you hear a CD from a local band you like (And I am not talking about the style of music, but the sound), ask them where they recorded it, and what kind of an experience they had. Of course there are limitations to this. If you are in a Heavy Metal band, and you hear a great Polka recording, or vice versa, perhaps you should do some more checking. However, I have had some good recording experiences as well with engineers that were not particularly familiar with the style we were recording; they were just good engineers.

So, that’s my sum total of advice, or at least most of it. And the reason for that seemingly innocuous little comment on my home page. I know it was long, but if it saves anyone the same costly experiences I went through (At least costly for the “star”), it may have been worth it.

(C) 2002 – Kelly Marsh

Special to Guitar Noise with permission of author

With the growth of the independent film world comes the increasing need for independent music to fill the soundtrack. If you have your band’s music on a CD or CDR, you are on your own label or no label and you do not have a publishing deal, then you’re an ideal candidate for the indie film world. The more rights that are exclusively yours, the better, as this gives you complete control and the power to negotiate with the movie production companies.

First, let’s get a couple of facts together. There are basically two licenses you will be granting to a production company. One is a Synchronization License and the other is a Master License. Leaving the big legal aspects of these issues to a lawyer, what you need to be aware of is that there is a fee for each license. These are often referred to as “sides” instead of licenses. The phrases to look out for are exclusive rights to your music in perpetuity throughout the universe. If you see that line in a contract, you can either talk to a lawyer or run. Most companies are on the up and up but some will try anything to rip you off.

You Are Your Own Biggest Asset

The best way to get the word out that you want your music in films is to open your own mouth. Start letting everyone know how excited you are about your new CD. Connections to the film industry can pop up in the weirdest places and you will be surprised who knows who in this town. The key aspect to remember is it’s cool to be enthusiastic. It’s a drag to be repetitive. Without being a pest, always carry your CDs with you. Find ways to bring up your band’s music in conversation at the grocery store, to your auto mechanic, and to your day-job colleagues. Basically, everyone you come in contact with is a potential path to the movie soundtrack that can make your band the next big thing.

The Band Rejects

Every band has songs they don’t use or throw out after a while. Just because they’re not currently in your set doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be perfect for a scene in a film. Get those rejects onto a CD, too. You can make up a name for the artist that recorded them so your band won’t be associated with this material. As long as you own the rights to the song, publishing and record release (if it was released at all) you are sitting on music that could be paying for rehearsals, or, if it hooks in a big fish, a touring van.

But Our CD Isn’t Done Yet

This is one scenario where the packaging does not matter at all. In fact, many production companies prefer to receive the CDs with no shrink wrap. Do anything to make it easier and faster to get to the music. Just make sure your CDRs have your contact info, song titles and band info on them. Include this on everything. It seems obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many bands do not write on their CDs. You don’t even have to have professional labels on the CD. Use a sharpie. Production companies don’t care what you or your packaging looks like. They just want to find a song or piece of music that fits a scene the way they envisioned it.

Right Place, Right Time

Here is a guerilla approach in the spirit of true independent thinking! Search the film and music trade papers (Billboard, Variety, ASCAP) for upcoming “film/music” seminar dates. Make a note of which hotels will be involved. You don’t have to sign up for anything! Just go and hang out in the bar of the hotel hosting the seminar and have your CDs in your bag. If you go with your bandmates, it might be a good idea to split up so you can work different parts of the room. Eavesdrop. When you overhear a film executive say that they just haven’t found the music they were looking for yet, that’s your cue to dive in. Once again, make sure to have your contact details on the CD!

Also, go to Slamdance in Park City, Utah. Type in “independent+film+festival” at Google and find a festival close to you. Schmooze, schmooze, schmooze.

The Money

As briefly mentioned before, you will get paid “per side.” There will be times when you will be asked to grant a gratis (free) license. If the film is going to a festival with the hopes of getting picked up for distribution, it may be worth it. When the film gets picked up, you can renegotiate your license fees. However, if it gets picked up by a huge company, you may be booted out in favor of a name artist.

If a company asks you to give up your song because they just can’t pay you anything, that’s another story. At least ask for $100 per side. Come on. Musicians are always ripped off. For your efforts you deserve a bare minimum from the smallest film or TV production. If they love it that much, they can find $200 measly bucks.

The general price range you can expect is anywhere from $100 up to $1,000 per side. When you actually get paid can be tricky. A lot of companies don’t pay until a film is released so don’t expect a check immediately. Television works faster than film but is still slower than getting paid from a job.

If a movie company decides to release a soundtrack CD, this is an entirely separate negotiation and you will need to consult an attorney. A soundtrack CD is not part of the licensing fees. In the case of a film that is using big name music along with indie music, the big names will get a larger portion of the music budget. This also applies to any soundtrack CD negotiation.

Real Life Examples

My band, Bubble, has placed three songs in films with a fourth one pending approval from the movie’s producers. The first song was placed by the good people at Sugaroo. (See details below.) The second song, “Drug” was placed in “The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest” through a friend who was a nanny for the film’s director. The third song, “Kickin’ Walls” is in “Try Seventeen” and got there through a friend who is an independent rep in film and television and who happens to love our band. The fourth track is an unreleased song that a good and enthusiastic friend had in her bag when she was working as a production assistant. She overheard the director complain that he couldn’t find the right song for a scene and she handed him the CDR.

Getting your music on to the big screen can be a “who knows who” game but it’s definitely worth playing. You might not get rich enough to buy a mansion or catch a big break but the money helps and the credits will look good on your band bio.

Outside of making personal connections with directors and music supervisors, here is a list of online resources:

• Sugaroo: A reputable company that represents artists to film and television. They placed our award-winning song, “Sparkle Star” in “Dancing At the Blue Iguana.” This is a good choice if you live outside of Los Angeles.
• Tonos: By joining Tonos, you can find many opportunities to submit your music for soundtracks. However, it will not be accompanied by a pitch just for your song; it will be placed on a CD along with several other tracks for a show’s producers to consider.
• If you are willing to part with a lot of control, you can try the resources at the online licensing company Relia Music, Inc.
• A slightly different approach is available at Song Catalog. This is a fee service (about $4.95/month) but may be worth a try.