Dead Rooster – AP1 – Charles Macrae

December 1, 2016Charles MacRae

Distribution Techniques – Streaming Platforms (LO2)

One of the most used forms of free, digital distribution is streaming platforms such as Spotify and Soundcloud. These platforms tend to be used a lot as they are free to use and you can easily upload to them, however, the monetary returns tend to either be minuscule or non-existent.

Pros of Spotify:

Free to upload music to the platform and can upload entire discography of a band with ease.
Can reach a large user base (40 Million paid subscribers).
Can make money for every listen of a song.
User controlled platform – no middle man (production company/Publisher).
Music streaming counts towards chart positioning.
Can link social media accounts and if someone you know is listening to a song, you can then click a link straight to that song.

Pros of Soundcloud:

Free platform – no subscriptions required to listen to music.
Free to upload any type of audio (podcast/music…).
Easily shareable – Create a link and post it to social media – has an embeddable media player.
Very simple user-interface – doesn’t turn people off.

Cons of Streaming Platforms:

The amount of money you gain via a single play is usually only $0.0084 (Spotify) – and Soundcloud will not pay out anything.
Not equivalent to sales of a CD.
You have to let people know that you are on these platforms for them to even start listening to your music.
The platforms are incredibly saturated with content that it can be hard to cut through and stand out.

I will be uploading the band’s EP to both of these platforms, purely because it gives them a rather large user base to sell their music too. I am aware that this is not a long term, money making idea as the gains from the online platforms are very small, however, it gets their music out there for free and will allow many people to listen to their music without them having to buy it prior.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/7/9861372/spotify-year-in-review-artist-payment-royalties

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/4/10/1428667990141/GUARDIAN_Musicians_2015_09_FB_(2).png?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=890d2de699d4fb0f0da17aac4ae16bbd

November 24, 2016Charles MacRae

Getting A Song On The Radio – Mixing/Mastering For Radio (LO4/3)

Mixing a song for radio play can be a bit of a tedious task as it can involve a lot of fine tuning. The major problem that most have (including myself) is that I tend to mix with fairly decent headphones or speakers which give a crisp sound that is close to the original recording. However the problem with doing this is that when you are listening to the radio, you don’t tend to be listening with this sort of equipment, it tends to either be terrible car speakers or cheap headphones, sometimes you even listen to the song in mono. The main goal that I have set myself is to make sure the songs sound good through my cheap £3 earphones and a cheap £5 mono speaker, that way I know it will likely sound good no matter what you play it on.

The main goal in mixing for radio is that you want the vocals to be audible, you don’t want listeners to have to really listen hard to the singing. As radio is more or less a passive experience nowadays if you are listening in a car, you want the instruments and vocals to pop and really shine through so that you garner some interest from the listener and pull them into the song and perhaps they start, really listening to the song. This goes doubly for the first 5-10 seconds of the song, you want this part to grab the attention of the listener right away.

Another thing that has to be considered is the length of the song, if you take a quick look on Spotify you can see that the majority of radio edits of songs land somewhere between 2-4 minutes in length as radio only has so many slots in a day and anything more than 4 minutes can just become tedious to the listener. Pretty much every song that we have recorded with the band is around 5 minutes in length, to shorten this I think I will likely get rid of either a chorus or long, drawn out intros and bridges so that it is radio ready.

I will remember to apply some of these techniques during the mixing/mastering process of the songs that the band want to be played on the radio.

This is the second of three radio posts, the third and final post will focus on my efforts to get the band played on the radio and the ways that I went about doing it.

Sources:
http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/Mixing_Your_Music_for_Radio_Broadcast

How to make your song stand out on the radio

November 23, 2016Charles MacRae

Distribution Techniques – Online Music Stores (LO2)

Some of the most used forms of distribution nowadays are online music stores, I will be focussing on two main stores that work similarly but the amount of money the band makes varies between them. The two stores that I will be focussing on are Itunes Music Store and Bandcamp.

Pros of Itunes Music Store:

Widely used online store – Users are familiar with its layout, therefore, it makes the buying process simpler.
As it is an integrated feature within the Itunes program and therefore Ipods/Iphones/Ipads, it can be instantly stored on these devices when it has been bought.
In comparison to streaming services, you can make more money per sale.
It allows users to support artists directly.

Pros of BandCamp:

Bandcamp is a privately owned company that specialises in hosting independent artists and using as a platform to promote such artists.
It only takes a 15% cut of each sale in comparison to Itunes’ 30%.
You can set the prices to whatever you like and even allow people to pay what they want for the product.
Gives the buyer options based on file type, including MP3, Flac and WAV file types.

Cons of Online Music Stores:

Online music stores take a cut of the money made from each purchase and can range from 10%-50%.
There are more hoops to jump through if you want to upload to these platforms – including going through an Aggregator (Itunes) to get your music on the platform, which can cost a lot of money.
In comparison to streaming services, it is not based on the user. With Spotify, the user is paying for a whole library of music to listen to, whereas buying music is more expensive and not giving them as much content.
Stores such as Itunes don’t allow you to play music you have bought from their store on non-apple devices.

I think for Dead Rooster I am going to be uploading their music to just Bandcamp as it is the best of the two options. It will allow them to sell their music in a digital form without losing a lot of their profits or having to pay an aggregator to get the music put up onto Itunes.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/selling-your-music-through-itunes-3598963/

http://www.therealmusician.com/bandcamp.html

November 20, 2016Charles MacRae

Dead Rooster – Social Media – Plan To Grow Likes (LO1)

As my first aim states, I wish to grow the social media presence of Dead Rooster so that they can get their music out to as many people as possible and therefore sell as many copies of their EP as the can once it is released.

As you can see from the picture attached below, the band’s Facebook page is only at 116 likes and only gains 1-2 likes per week on a good week. They are not very active on social media and have only used it to promote live shows and occasionally shared a YouTube video of them playing live.

My goal by the end of this project is to grow the band’s Facebook page as much as I can. The way that I will do this is by creating a plan for the band, which will give them a date in which they should post something to their page to either tease that they are working on new music or promote themselves in some way. Below I have set out a rough plan which I will give to the band and hope they follow.

28th Nov – After the initial recording – (Pictures/videos will have been taken during recording session) The band will upload the videos and pictures and say that they are in the studio recording new music.
1st Dec – Release track listing for the new EP
5th Dec – If the artwork has been created in time the band will release the cover art for the EP.
10th Dec – Release a 30-second preview of one of the songs
11th Dec – Release Bandcamp/Itunes link to pre-order the EP
15th Dec (If Applicable) Share that the new song will be played on the radio the next day to accompany the release.
16th Dec – Remind people it will be played on the radio and also give album purchasing links.

I will be monitoring the likes and how many people are talking about the band as the process continues and will update the blog every week or so with data on how their page has grown.

http://dottedmusic.com/2014/marketing/social-media-strategy-to-promote-music/ – Step 1 / 3 / 4

November 12, 2016Charles MacRae

Getting A Song On The Radio – T&C’s (LO4)

The first issue that I am going to tackle when it comes to getting on the radio will be based on radio standards and the terms & conditions involved with getting a song on the radio – focussing mainly on how to get a song onto BBC radio, however, the standards tend to be similar for most stations.

The main source of my research for this was the BBC Introducing terms and conditions, which can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2JHbQtxpDBT56LG9wx0BDQ8/bbc-introducing-uploader-terms-and-conditions

The terms and conditions that I am mainly focusing on are number 5 and 11 from their list.

Term 5:

“The artist(s) must be the sole author(s) of the Material. The individual submitting the Material hereby warrants that they have obtained and can give all necessary consents and permissions on behalf of all persons or entities contributing to the Material by their writing, composing, musical performance, recording, producing or otherwise (or the consent and permission of the parent/guardian of those persons are under 16 years old) and are authorised by any such persons or entities to make the Material and to grant the rights set out in these terms and conditions.”

As I am only one member of the creative team involved with the production of these songs, I will be aiming to get spoken and written consent from the band and Oliver that says I am allowed to upload their music on their behalf. I will make sure they know what it is I will be doing as I do it and will tell them if they have successfully been played or are going to be played on the radio.

Term 11:

“Contributions must not contain defamatory or obscene material”

This is a fairly basic rule that applies to almost all radio stations (and TV prior to watershed). The songs that have been produced do have swearing in them and I am aware that I will have to either take the swearing out or obfuscate the word in some way during the mixing process. Alternatively, we could record a second version of the vocals that changes the obscenity to something else completely that still flows with the song.

This is part one of three radio posts that I will write, the next one will be about the mixing process and how it ties into the radio standards.