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-- The music industry and the poor state it is in now - what about the future?
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I want to hear him talk forever.

My 2cts,

look at the following:
- what defines a succesful artist?
- what are their primary sources of income?

- gigs
- sales
- endorsements

In general there is an overload of content available on the web and people don't have to pay for music anymore. There are more (internet) radio stations than one can listen to in a lifetime, there is a lifetime wordth of audio posted on Soundcloud every day
the amount of viral videos on YouTube is immense.

It will be very hard to claim your space in this spotlight, without the networking power and marketing budgets of major labels.

So what does that mean for us? either get signed by a major, or become a very succesful DJ.

If you want to earn money now? have people pay you for your skills and do pay as you go production jobs (music for corporate videos / commercials / stockmusic) DJ on weddings / parties etc.

Even if everybody knows your name on the internet in social media, Unless your able to capitalize on that reputation, you will probably still not be able to pay your rent, let alone splash out on your online stardom income.

a little bit of seething wordage, some sarcasm here.

who realistically chooses to make music for an income? why would you do that? before armin made it big, he finished law school. everyone should have a backup. the ones who are making the most money had a backup, and probably would have never had a chance to belt out any tunes without that real life support. musicians should be compensated for sure. but the dj/producer/label gimmick is profoundly lucrative, a confusing and often stressful and frustrating amalgamation of lucrative enterprises. like the guy says, these people (DJs) are just entertainers, they aren't musicians. you can easily hire someone to come in and produce things for you, but the system is set up that once you have your huge "in", why capitulate your desire for material success? when you have throngs of promoters and party goers already subscribed to the marketing and scene, innovation is an unknown, and that's what these pieces of shit are. a bunch of mundane, sedentary risk avoiding capitalists. i guess the message is, only DJ or produce to get famous, because that's the only way you'll make any real money. over celebrated demi-gods, and the underground DIY party DJ/producer. see the disparity. taste it. feel it.

Very true words Evolve140

quote:

Originally posted by Evolve140 before armin made it big, he finished law school.

It was actually the other way around, Armin made it big while still being in law school. He graduated on copyright if I recall correctly .

I'm not going to spill all my beans but I think labels actually do not really benefit from the online social media at all. There are plenty oppurtunities out there especially in this regard.

Armada is one of the few making use of social media. But with over 350.000 followers on Facebook I'm surprised they do not blast all EDM shops/charts away with their sales each and every time. So apart from what they're doing right they're not doing very well either. I wonder if 1% of that 350k followers even buys their music regularly. Would be very valuable and interesting information. Don't try and be this huge/professional company, personalize your brand, engage your audience on social media and respond to their questions and input regualarly and you've got hundreds of followers in no-time. Think about what stimulates and motivates your audience to keep track of your activity (quality music, decent pricing, good website, engaging/personal approach towards fans), think about how you can reach your audience without annoying them. Don't hide behind the corporate face that is your website/twitter/facebook. Engaging your audience in an interactive way would probably be 80% of creating reaching a new audience and creating a lift in sales. A less personal approach in a lot of cases pulls you away from your audience (i.e. statically posting your news on twitter but never responding to any questions) while you want to reel them in closer.

I think labels and possibly artists should think of ways to stimulate the interest of their audience in other ways. Alternative ways of putting yourself out there. If you do things in a smart marketable way I think it isn't that hard to even reach over a 1000 downloads on your first ever release within a month.

Think about handing out branded USB sticks (or other freebies) with promotional audio (mp3 or seomthing) on there to hand out to your audience (order them for free via the website, or hand them out at gigs), give the social media followers more 'inside scoops'. Put that facebook like button on every page of your website so all of the visitors friends get notified the visitor likes that page once clicked. Collect the data Facebook is able to feed you. Locate your ideal target audience and aim to expand from there.

A lot of these things are really simple when put to use and I'm amazed how very few actually do so.

thanks for the correction. i hope my point sort of was clear though, that a pragmatic, career oriented person has a lot better chances of success than someone who was merely trying to make a living from music. however, i interjected that on my own, it not being the first relevant thing pertaining to this discussion. thanks for sharing what you have, and it's respectable that you don't spill the beans. having said that while trying to practice the same discretion, i think one of the major misconceptions worth mentioning is that armin, tiesto, and wonderboys like that were "prodigies" in some sense -- when in actuality they got a lot of help. it is perhaps sheer cunning that made them successful. will we even know?

edit: after reading the initial post, it seems the premise i spoke of and divulged upon was indeed the correct one. (music as sole income/revenue)

quote:

Originally posted by Evolve140 thanks for the correction. i hope my point sort of was clear though, that a pragmatic, career oriented person has a lot better chances of success than someone who was merely trying to make a living from music. however, i interjected that on my own, it not being the first relevant thing pertaining to this discussion. thanks for sharing what you have, and it's respectable that you don't spill the beans. having said that while trying to practice the same discretion, i think one of the major misconceptions worth mentioning is that armin, tiesto, and wonderboys like that were "prodigies" in some sense -- when in actuality they got a lot of help.

Armin is by far the most interesting example of how things should be done businesswise. I'm not a fan of the label and the way they work now but they seem to be a very effective and efficient company. Unfortunately they're also a humongous corporate entity that is hard to talk to (not really engaging their audience on a personal level).

If you want to succeed in music I think it is important that you engage your audience in an interactive way. One way (artist to audience) communication is a no-no. You have the have pre-defined goals, a set scope you will be working in. The goal living from music is too broad in a sense that it leaves too much open. You will need a plan of action and make it happen.

Chris Reece is the prime example for me right now, musically and businesswise. He's making a living out of his music now but from what I've read he produces like 80 or so hrs a week in order to sustain his income. However he keeps things personal by talking with fans on all levels and keeps the group of people he works with relatively small making him incredibly efficient overall. He has worked his way up in the past 3 years more than most people would think was possible in this climate.

Okay nice. Way to re-align the discussion, but I fear I could derail it slightly once more. I think capitalism is such an interesting construct to be pervading the idea of music. Imagine that it had failed as a system, some other economic and idealogical system would have emerged. It works for those who it works for, a paradigm, but I won't elaborate on that statement from fear of politicizing this thread, and because I think it should be resonant enough for everyone to understand.

What if money didn't exist? Just hypothetically. If you are smart enough, you can think about anything abstractly and maybe even a little disassociated. I believe that people are paying for superficial notions of being satisfied or entertained, and that others are seemingly paying for musical gratification. Which people want to be entertained, and which people want to be musically gratified? Who are we actually making music for?

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker I think there has to be a market for it but audio quality is the way I'd like to go.

The most impressive thing about Funktion One is how well-known the brand is around the world. Not in any kind of detail, but a vast number of clubbers will be able to tell you that a Funktion One sound system is a good thing, even if they're just quoting what others have said. In fact most clubbers wouldn't be able to name any other club speaker brands.

But yes, high quality IS a bit of a niche. Everyone wants to hear good quality sound when they're out, but a lot of people wouldn't choose one night over the other because the sound is A+ standard rather than A.

The number of people who will happily listen to 128kbps and lower quality MP3s at home and on their iPods shows that most people aren't that fussed.

So I think you'd have a hard time making a living by using high sound quality as a unique selling point.

Home listening has nothing to do with club experience. I know you weren't directly comparing them though. I have been to huge events where I thought the sound could be better. Maybe we don't know what the best could be, since everything is so superficial in club land (shit land) now? Maybe trying to attain such a pristine sound is elitist, but shit, considering how poorly and mismanaged the scene is operating, and how sophomoric listening practices can be, how do you know ALL of us wouldn't truly benefit from a pristine listening environment? I'm all for it, sign me up. Imagine, loud enough you don't need ear plugs, clear enough you don't need to turn it up. Let's not sell ourselves short, after all, this is our fucking scene now.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox The most impressive thing about Funktion One is how well-known the brand is around the world. Not in any kind of detail, but a vast number of clubbers will be able to tell you that a Funktion One sound system is a good thing, even if they're just quoting what others have said. In fact most clubbers wouldn't be able to name any other club speaker brands. But yes, high quality IS a bit of a niche. Everyone wants to hear good quality sound when they're out, but a lot of people wouldn't choose one night over the other because the sound is A+ standard rather than A. The number of people who will happily listen to 128kbps and lower quality MP3s at home and on their iPods shows that most people aren't that fussed. So I think you'd have a hard time making a living by using high sound quality as a unique selling point.

You are completely right and on point with the thread. We need to start a thread about Audiophile vs. Club Slut

quote:

Originally posted by Evolve140 Home listening has nothing to do with club experience. I know you weren't directly comparing them though. I have been to huge events where I thought the sound could be better. Maybe we don't know what the best could be, since everything is so superficial in club land (shit land) now? Maybe trying to attain such a pristine sound is elitist, but shit, considering how poorly and mismanaged the scene is operating, and how sophomoric listening practices can be, how do you know ALL of us wouldn't truly benefit from a pristine listening environment? I'm all for it, sign me up. Imagine, loud enough you don't need ear plugs, clear enough you don't need to turn it up. Let's not sell ourselves short, after all, this is our fucking scene now.

at this point i am pretty drunk. nice discussion though.

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker Here's my thinking, outside the box: Kind of sketchy but... I think there has to be a market for it but audio quality is the way I'd like to go. I saw this and remembered how events used to sound verses how events and other venues began sounding by the time I informally stopped going to clubs. If you listen to what this guy says about the sound-chain (And I suppose DJ RANN might have more of an idea if this guy is smoking too much of his own hype or not), he's proposing an ideal that starts out with a perfectly mixed, perfectly mastered track. Like I said, though, I've heard songs I'd previously heard on decent sound systems lose their charm, entirely, when put through a negligible sound-system. If I were a producer who was confident in his work, I'd find a list of DJ's who regularly played on a Funktion One (or similar), and start marketing to them. How that fits into building a revolution, in terms of marketing, is that, hypothetically, you're delivering a product to a niche. It affords them better control over what they're getting if you can consistently deliver a quality product with such sensibilities in mind as to be both exquisite and compatible with their sound-system. If you can get a select few people to do things this way, where you have much more control over the quality, then you can help advance product quality for Funktion One clubs and Owners. It's not some hyper-mastered MP3 that gets downloaded from Beatport and people should just stop selling music that way. The other part of my recommended solution is to stop feeding the machine. I think a lot of people are mislead that it's going to be some milk & honey experience when they get signed to a label who's selling on Beatport but then the song doesn't make the artist more than $100.00 (but feel free to correct me on that - I'm certain there are variations). There's also the fact that Beatport is involved in a law-suit concerning how it's leveraged its artist's bay out of Denver night-clubs it doesn't own. I agree with not talking about the problems as much as the solution, but I think part of the solution is not to be part of the problem. Don't feed it with the revenues it gets from your product. Really, this is all just spit-balling here, but ditch the labels and start one up as a cooperative, where label mates share administrative responsibilities. The middle-man makes most of their money because a large pool of artists is belting out a large amount of product. Again, stop feeding this part of the beast and let it die. Finally, there's an old adage that says, "If you want to take a look at what you want, take a look at what you've got." And really, what do we have? If you're unsatisfied with bad promoters and shifty contracts, stop playing the game. Drop out, do something else for a living, continue to make music but fuck the riff-raff. It may take a little while for it to start happening and you'll probably have to save up for a few years, or at least pay a loan, if you really want to drive a used BMW but I suspect a comfortable living could be made with a little discretion.

I actually used to know Tony (he & F1 were my client in London) and I have to say, he's not blowing smoke.

I could address this on a number of reasons, from the fact the popularity in modular line array systems have done nothing to improve quality over traditional speaker stacks, to the fact that digital technology and advances in materials has indeed not made a practical positive impact.

I too hate the mp3 (I have never downloaded an MP3 for DJ'ing purposes, only wav) and his argument for playing higher rates is every valid, at least in a theoretical sense.

Now while I see mp3 serves a purpose, and for the average consumer, many may think it does not matter, I actually believe it does. Think about the great rock and pop productions from the 60 through the 80's (70's especially). People bang on about how great that music is. Yes a lot has to do with talent and the collective environment, but I also beleive the playback medium is at least a subconscious factor, to that certain magic. It's not just a tactile or melancholic thing relating to the mediums. There is a magic coperative thing that happens when the talent is equal to the quality. The same factor translates to a live gig. Great music hread through a great transfer medium increases it'w worth more, than just the sum of the parts.

From a marketing view as you suggest, yes I think there's a niche, and I think if it were able to create a valid platform, it could be a lot more, even have mainstream or mass-market appeal.

There are more niche enthusiasts out there than you think, and it's just a matter of connecting with them. There's also an aspirational aspect that can be huge to tap in to, with people who think they know (that's actually how CD's superceded vinyl in the mass market place - digital technology, modern design, better quality etc).

There are certain people who already do this, both for themselves but also for consumers.

one score engineer I have worked with will not mix in anything less than 96k (32 bit float) when mixing, and he'll walk out if he can't be accommodated, as he just won't put his name to it.

One composer I worked for records everything he does in 96k for the same reason, and uses analogue synths where ever humanly possible - it makes his job easier when "selling" these scores to the client, because they sound so fucking good. It's inadvertantly become his tradmark, even if people don't quite understand the inner workings (i.e. why it sounds so good).

IMO, there's definitely a market for positioning something with respect to quality, especially, in some ways, if it carries a premium. There's always that perception of "expensive quality", and I for one am happy to pay more for something if it's quality in it's aesthetic, function, build or even experience (see apple products for more information).

The problem is marketing it under at least the cover or pretense of a niche thing to large numbers (but this has the advantage, if done right or seeming like a secret or coveted to a lucky few). The other issue is scalability, essentially taking it from small production to large and delivery of that process without damaging the brand, but it's certainly not impossible, as any high end luxury goods manufacturer will tell you.

Back on to the technical aspect, I think 24 bit 96k as a medium should become a reality very soon as a mass product. Interenet speeds are now fast enough to cope with, not to mention storage space which is only going to get bigger for less money over time.

Any more people that have thoughts about what should happen to make the music industry a healthy one again?

vinyl. the format itself is a quality filter.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller engage your audience on social media and respond to their questions and input regualarly and you've got hundreds of followers

Great thread.

In my other life, I sometimes give companies feedback on where they are going wrong. I find almost all companies get many things wrong.

Execution and simplicitry is key.

So your idea about engaging your audience for example. It's been tried by a few but so far they get the execution all wrong.

Take for example Sandervandoorn - sure he does a lot right but he also is overlooking some very key fundamentals. I found his site and forum too clunky and that means too time consuming so he lost me.
Those faults are easy to remedy but as is always the case, the people running the thing do not understand properly the real minute to minute needs of the end user.

You even see these faults with very pro firms such as Audi. For example the dashboard on many of thier cars cannot be cleaned with most ordinary cloths without parts of the cloth ripping off and being left on the dash. How can such a pro firm miss this point? Well, it's always the same reason - the people at the top are out of touch and do not stress test thier products in the way a REAL end user will - so for example in the Audi R&D centre they will have professional cloths so they wont have tried ordinary households varieties so the problem goes unseen.

Back to music, by all means set out to ENGAGE, but make damned sure your facilities really are engaging and simple - make any registration or security process VERY simple. Do not annoy people with unecessary security or silly techy nonsense - keep it a 1 or 2 step process. Make it easier than all the competetion to register as a user. Don;t use third party systems that annoy people, like some forms of PAYPAL that have many faults (for example asking for a phone number - the end user may not remember what phone number he had 10 years ago when he got the credit card). Use third party shit that works and is simple.

PROPERLY ENGAGE - so far some organisations and artists say they wanted to engage but in reality it's hit and miss, now and then, not value laden, too erratic. The expectations and delivery are not as good as the hype was.

MARKETING - how many times do you get a promo in your inbox only to find it's very annoying as there is no CLEAR one click way to hear it? THIS IS BACK TO THE AUDI SCENARIO - the designer forgot the end users needs again.

In a promo you want it simple, fast and un cluttered. A big 'play me now' button, job done. You do not want the hassle of a link to beatport simply to hear the track first.

Again, take care of these small details, always with simplicity in mind.

EXECUTION - think of those hyped producer interviews - how many of them get all the basics wrong - thier voice too muffled and roomy, the music too quiet - sloppyness all the time. You must execute every tiny detail well and think everything through.

MATERIAL - OK, flame time, ha ha!
First off, no I'm not there myself yet, so lets get that one out the way, but I think I do know what a MASS audience wants, and frankly hardly anyone delivers it.
By all means be an in tact uber cool 'artiste' if you want, but you know what, if you want to make big sales, then you probably want to think in terms of a product. FLAME FLAME.

If I were looking for material for a label I'd be UTLRA fussy, and I mean almost nothing would get on there unless it met a 10 point stricy criteria set of values.

Any track under consideration would be played to non dance heads, ordinary lady gaga fans, because just targeting a dance audience would not be sufficient. People in a scene often cannot see the woods for the trees - it's good to get the take of non experts.

IMAGE - very few labels artwork stands out - we all get carried away thinking ours is great, but 99% of it is forgettable. As such you need to put an immense focus over months getting brand image artwork done.
This would involve an intensive study of all major brands in the last 100 years.

Viral networking - it's a full time job, if it were me I'd pay a young person to do it 24/7 BUT TO MAKE IT REAL AND NOT ROBOTIC - nothing worse than those lame messages 'cool tune, you can check mine out here'.

WEBSITE - 99% of sites are lacking. Most are uch to complex, and seem to start out with the premise you have all day to look at a site, when in fact Humans have no time left, they are bombarded night and day with messages and complexity. YOUR SITE SHOULD SIT ABOVE ALL OTHERS AS AN UBER FREINDLY, LOW TIME IMPACT, ULTRA SIMPLE island in a sea of caalamity.
There's a reason Google does so well - look how ultra simple thier main search page always was, no annoying other boxes to worry about, just a clean white screen and simple seatch.Complexity is a major failure - yet many get wrapped up in it as they think by being clever and complex they are working hard.

FAVORITES CLICK SWITCH - imagine a site where a big add to favorites switch is present - this reminds the end user to bookmark it - but this is not enough - how will it look when saved into thier favorites? It should show as a clear and distinct nimage not some meaningless bit of text that gets overlooked later and forgoton. DETAILS, TINY DETAILS.

Anyway I could go on, but I won't, I don't want to bore ya.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Any more people that have thoughts about what should happen to make the music industry a healthy one again?

I just spotted this after I added a long post. Mine is more concerned with some ideas how to make it in the current scene.

As to how to make an industry healthier - impossible - just do your own thing right and do not be concerned with the industry as a whole.
In any event, in the eyes of some stake holders it is healthy.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Any more people that have thoughts about what should happen to make the music industry a healthy one again?

I'd say that it's healthier now than it has been in the recent past. The days of the uber-superstar are dwindling because, in the past, the record labels largely decided who was going to be a star and which songs would be force-fed to the masses. They filtered out anything that didn't meet their perception of what a rock/pop star should be, which meant that a lot of talented people, including many friends of mine, got shafted. Now, with the advent of the personal computer and the ubiquity of the Internet, virtually everybody has the ability to produce CD quality music and the ability to have your music heard is limited only by your ability to market yourself. The down side is that the market has become very saturated and very dilute, so setting yourself apart from the competition will likely be one of the next big challenges (i.e., business opportunities) for the music industry.

The castle gates are being torn down and the power has been restored to the lower and middle classes. The question, in my mind, is whether or not the cycle will continue, or will a few individuals find a way to regain control from the masses?

awesome post Richard, i agree on so many levels. i think with the proper engagement a first release could get you well over a 1000 downloads within a month. It would of course require a proper investment too which almost everybody forgets.

And getting the industry more healthy is just a generic question. i guess it's way more interesting to just see how people over here think they can reach their target audience.

It's extremely obvious to me that very few artists have any kind of marketing sense at all.

If you're music is generic and samey, then its even a more uphill battle to get noticed. People like Armin and Tiesto make generic music, but they can just spam their name on flyers.

The future of music is Odd Future:

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik The future of music is Odd Future: Odd Future Gets Signed from Odd Future

heh, funny.

wolfgang

Picking up on some other themes that have been highlighted around here recently; I think that the scene is healthy by many measures. The trance scene isn't, but dance music more generally certainly is. The fact that many people here have such a pessimistic view indicates to me that maybe they're mainly focussed on trance.

Relative to rock and other genres, dance is in a far better position. Although maybe the music industry as a whole is not.

There's still a lot of money to be made in film, TV, advertising, games, live shows, DJing etc. You just need a niche IMO. If worst comes to worst, then generally the thing to do is move up a level in terms of technicality. When DJing became big, the wannabe's became producers. When production became big, the producers became mastering engineers. I don't know what the next step is, maybe synth programmer. That's the pattern I seem to see though.

of course the new thing is to make ipad apps.

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