Making Your Own Music And Special Packaging Costs

Special Packaging Costs

Most of the record companies believe that inner sleeves an special inserts add a little more album sales in the music industry. Since vinyl has gone, special inserts have become a non issue. CD's still have inserts. Say, you write thank yous for your parents, etc, this is a added page. You have to negotiate for extra panels for your CD. If you are at the superstar level, you can get more pages. If you are not at the superstar level and want extra pages, this provision will reduce your royalty by 5 to 10 cents per unit. Just be aware of this and save your money. Are special insert really needed? It's about the music anyway.

Here are some bargain recommended recording products:

Pro Tools Make Music Now Recording Studio


Tascam DP-02 Digital Portastudio - 8 Track


*Dub Turbo

Making Your Own Music And Controls

Controls

In making your own music in the music business, their is something called control. These are various clauses and consent that you must ask for. These are some of the controls that you should actually get and ask for:

1. Consent of coupling and the specific details on controlling it.
2. Consent on use of your master recordings in commercials.
3. Consent of licensing your master recordings for film and television.
4. Approval of your photographs and biographical materials used in advertising and promotion.

If you can't get this in your contract, don't sign. This is income that is big profit for you and you hear a lot of songs on television and movies.

Soundscan

In the record industry people wonder how record sales are tracked? A company called Soundscan. They began in 1991. They track by reading register tapes of reporting stores. Soundscan data is also used for Billboard charts. Keep in mind that they are not %100 accurate. Soundscan is not set up for independent record stores, so there are some missing profits. Sometimes labels will agree that reserves can't exceed their shipments less the Soundscan numbers. Here is an example: If 100,000 albums were shipped and Soundscan showed 80,000 sold, the reserve couldn't exceed 20,000.

Recording Products

Here are some recommended recording products:

Dub Turbo

Sonic Producer

Pro Tools Make Music Now Recording Studio

Alesis iMultiMix 8USB

Making Your Own Music At Home

Making Your Own Music At Home

In the music business, trying to succeed at it takes time, energy, patience, and can be expensive. What I mean by expensive? Well, think about if you are serious about a career as a recording artists. You might pay for rehearsal time for a space. Everyone needs to record and put out some songs. If you are just starting out, you should know that you can cut costs by recording at home. These days the quality of recording from home is very good. You can produce the same quality from home as most studios and not spend tons of money on studio time. Here are some products to check out:

Sony Creative Software ACID Music Studio 8.0 - 2011

Pro Tools Make Music Now Recording Studio

Image-Line Software Image-line Fl Studio 9 Fruity Edition V.1


I have become a fan of ebooks. Here are a few of the better beat creating software's out there.

Dub Turbo

Sonic Producer

These two products are great for recording from your home and both cost under $30! This is a bargain for what they can do for your song creation. I highly recommend!

Making Your Own Music And Album Cover Artwork

Album Cover Artwork

When making your own music as a musician, whether it's new artist, midlevel, or superstar, you have a big involvement your your album cover artwork. You still have to ask for it. This means in your contract when you sign with a record label. In the music industry, this process is called consultation. The label and you or your band have to go through an approval process. The next step is approval. This means you can approval the artwork that the label prepares. When you have approval rights, the label has to please you with submitted artwork or you can stop them from using it. Remember that every little detail in the music business maters. When you get the rights to creative artwork, make sure that you have an adequate budget. If you are at the superstar level you get %100 creative control on your cover artwork. A normal budget for artwork for your cover is between $20,000 to $25,000. Some cases, the label will exceed the maximum amount of your budget. If they do make sure, that in your contract you are not charged against your royalties.

Check out these recording equipment products:

Pro Tools Make Music Now Recording Studio

Tascam DP-02 Digital Portastudio - 8 Track

MXL 990 Condenser Microphone with Shockmount

Music Industry And Label Tour Support

Tour Support

In the music industry you need to know about tour support from you label. When making your own music ant touring their are many things to consider and know from the get go. When you first sign as a new artist, you will  need to go on tour for several reasons. Just keep in mind that do expect to make much of a profit when you are new and go on tour for the first time. With travel , hotels, food, agents, and manager, the expenses are pretty high. As a midlevel artist you will break even and maybe make a little bit of profit. Touring is very important for your career. This is so you can build an audience, sell more records, play bigger concerts,etc. Tour support is money from your label and ranges from $50,000 to $150,000. This is only if you are signed on a major label. If you are signed with an indie label the range is $10,000 to $15,000. Touring is hard to convince your label. The label will have to think that their is a good reason to tour. Keep in mind that not every signed recording artist does major tours. If you are a artist that is all about touring you best get in clause in your contract that you want to tour and if you are more of a performance based artist, you might get the green light from your label. If you have to stage presence and just record well, than just stick to recording albums and hope you sell millions. To guarantee yourself a tour, you need to break the top 40. This is called CHR. It means contemporary hit radio. If you can conquer this you will be able to tour.

Pro Tools Make Music Now Recording Studio

Tascam DP-02 Digital Portastudio - 8 Track

Audio-Technica AT2020 USB Condenser USB Microphone

Commercial Market Videos In The Music Industry

Commercial Market Videos

When making your own music and making videos, there is little profit in single-song videos. he reason is because these videos in the music business is for promotional use to gain exposure for your album. Historically, monies came from home video sales using music videos. These days video streaming on demand from Yahoo, AOL, and Bing. You still get royalties from this and I will discuss this in a later post. A dual disk is a CD on one side and a video on another.

Will Your Label Make A Video For Your Song

Until you have some clout and bargaining power the answer will be no way. Once you get bigger you can get two videos made per album. This is standard. The label's concern is that videos may not be useful in the future. Present day, they are not. MTV does not even play videos anymore. 

Numark MIXTRACK DJ Software Controller

ION Audio iCUE MP3 Computer Music Mixing Station with Software

Pro Tools Make Music Now Recording Studio

Audio-Technica AT2020 USB Condenser USB Microphone

Making Your Own Music And Videos

Videos

Videos that you see om MTV and VH1 are what are called promotional videos. These videos are made and paid for by the record label. In the music industry, the reason videos are made is to promote your record. You and your label don't make a profit from producing videos. The label might break even because the videos are expensive to make.

History

Music videos started in 1981 in America and have been around in  Europe since the 1960's. In Europe this way a alternative way to promote your album, instead of touring. In the music business, this was much cheaper than touring. In the 1950's in the United States there was something called Scopitone. These were jukeboxes that played videos that were black and white and also some color. These were make on 16mm film but vanished after a few years. Today these Scopitone's are considered collectors items. In movie theaters some short videos were shown in movie theaters.

Music Making Software And Song Recording

I recommend a few good home recording products:

Pro Tools Make Music Now Recording Studio

Tascam DP-02 Digital Portastudio - 8 Track

Audio-Technica AT2020 USB Condenser USB Microphone

Dub Turbo