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-- Do illegal downloads mean lower revenue/royalties for the artists?
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quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN As for artists like andy blueman - give me a fucking break. So he was a big name but he produced instantly displosable trance that connects with a particular demographic inclined to be illegal downloaders (kids in to epic schranz). Burial does not gig, but yet seems to get on OK. Honestly, you just have to be smart about music. I know producers that make way better money off selling ringtones of their tracks than they do off the tracks themselves. Combine that with the odd TV or film work (see Andy Blueman) and you're going to make money off music, let alone if you gig live or DJ.

No, you give me a break.
All Blueman has released is 13 tracks. 5 of them were rated "track of the week", 2 were voted #1 from TATW's weekly web vote, Florescence made the top 25 best trance choons of 2010. And are you ready for this... >>>> 11 <<<< of his 13 tracks were voted into the top 1000 trance tunes in HISTORY. That was out of *10,000* nominees. Thats pretty damn impressive no matter who you are or whether you like his music or not.
84% of his tracks made it in. Show me another artist who had that many tracks voted for. I doubt there is even 1.

Blueman was not around a long time but in the short time he was releasing tracks he was more consistent than a lot of artists I can think of. Look at Kandi, Nickey, Tyas, Nitrous Oxide, Static Blue, Tayle, Nickson... FUCK, there are so many artists where most of their tracks might be mixed decent or ok, but half of all their tracks in general just suck. Blueman sometimes had issues with sound quality because he was always pushing the envelope but I can only name 1 or 2 of his tracks that I consider total flukes. Other artists tend to produce one decent track, then a handful of shit ones. Artists like Airbase are very far and few between. I consider Blueman even as a "rookie" to have been more consistent than most.

Now take what I've said, and apply that to the industry. We have people like Storyteller and Cryo who want you to believe in concepts like mind over matter, but what matters most in this industry is politics, not how optimistic a person you be. I'm sorry but that is a crock of shit. "Think in opportunities instead of problems". That sounds like hippy talk to me.. let me hit this joint first. Only way to solve a problem is to first look at it logically, not ignore it. And the whole point here is EVEN IF Blueman was up to the standards of you and clay, and the very small minority of people that hate him (if you go read any other forum than TA you'll see around 90+% of people posting love his music) he STILL wouldn't have made shit.
What are all the other succesful artists doing? DJn, look at Tyas and Ali and Fila, only way to "think in opportunity" in this industry is to sell out and become a DJ or figure out a way to monopolize the industry to its core.. orrr to just be really good at politics and kissing the right asses. Blueman busted his ass, had no social skills but made really good music, maybe not according to you but ABSOLUTELY according to the vast majority of people, and he still didn't make shit. He had no ability to talk coherent English but he sure was one talented mfkr when it came to mass appeal. Cheese or not I definitely don't consider his tracks "diposable"... unless you consider the other 1000 best tracks ever made to be disposable too.
THAT is the point. Positivity will get you nowhere in this business. Hardwork is always rewarded with a parasitic level of selectivity. Its all about what you can do for the ones above you, and how they can rape you in the process.

And on top of all of that the world is going to end in 2012.
Now tell Robby he doesn't know shit and is just some dumb clueless newbie. Thats where most these debates end up anyway.

pop(ular) music is generally disposable. The largest part of the world likes pop music. So yes Blueman is likely to be disposable even though you mention some great achievements.

I think a bunch of rebels with plans to rule the world would do the edm industry a lot of good. Think different, be different and communicate differently.

I'd love to file a class action against several labels together with other neglected artists and force some edm labels to go bankrupt. As soon as you can prove the abuse of artists is structural and intended you have a strong case. It should be fairly easy as they never deliver statements on time if at all and they seem to delay things at all cost. They don't live up to their contracts either way. So voiding the contract with a damage claim for everyone shouldn't be hard. That would shake up things. I'm actually getting excited haha.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Now take what I've said, and apply that to the industry. We have people like Storyteller and Cryo who want you to believe in concepts like mind over matter, but what matters most in this industry is politics, not how optimistic a person you be. I'm sorry but that is a crock of shit. "Think in opportunities instead of problems". That sounds like hippy talk to me.. let me hit this joint first. Only way to solve a problem is to first look at it logically, not ignore it.

This is an interesting point because I think it's the other way around. Matter over mind.

Matter is labels are not cost-effective, they earn their money by holding back on paying out artists or paying out stupidly low percentages, because:

1. They're inefficient. Digital distribution has an overhead cost that is near to 0 if done correctly and automated. EDM Labels that actually create hardcopy products hardly exist anymore so the investment is near 0. The only thing they have to pay for is employees and their office (if they have any of either).

2. (Especially the bigger) labels want to uphold the old ways. They wan't their old gross revenue back, don't want to fire employees, they're in denial, fail to recognise business oppurtunities out there which are blatantly obvious (to me) for a few years now. Guess what, this is 2011. Adapt and automate.

3. (Big) labels don't scale properly. Small labels (ran by one or 2 guys) often pay out 40-50% on gross sales and on time more regularly than the big ones. While upscaling is about increasing revenue, efficiency and profit margin! Get a clue?! 50% is a lot of course, but 14% is plain stupid for a product that requires no investment (other than time) to distribute.

Don't come telling me those 2 guys running their small label have a day-job. Of course they do; They're efficient with their time! They publish music and yet still have time to do a full time job? Seems like those big labels could cut 50% on personnel if they only had the aforementioned two guys.

4. The majority of labels refuse to abide their own contracts (!), neglect artists and lack long term brand building for them and their artists.

Apart from number 2 all of these can be solved easily. Labels (the big ones mostly) just don't want to change and artists accept willingly. That needs to change.

Only 2 out of 10 labels I am supposed to get statements from have lived up to their own contracts. It's appalling. Labels are (imo) a bigger problem than illegal downloads.

I do think labels can be a good thing. The majority just isn't with the current business model and organization structures.

I found one of my tracks in a monthly "beatport best of techno" pack on one of the major piracysites.
considering that I am still to see any statements, let alone payouts,I really don't mind it. free publicity and being associated with bigger names is aLways a good thing. fickle I haTe typing on this android lol

quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi I found one of my tracks in a monthly "beatport best of techno" pack on one of the major piracysites. considering that I am still to see any statements, let alone payouts,I really don't mind it. free publicity and being associated with bigger names is aLways a good thing. fickle I haTe typing on this android lol

Honestly, I don't think that is a bad thing necessarily. At first (years ago) I was pissed off. Now I consider it a compliment. Ironically illegal distribution of my music has probably brought me more than legal sales.

quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi fickle I haTe typing on this android lol

Yeah, this site is fun on an android phone. A lot of the time I can't see what I'm typing, and have to hope that Android isn't guessing at/changing any words...

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller The majority of labels refuse to abide their own contracts (!), neglect artists and lack long term brand building for them and their artists. Only 2 out of 10 labels I am supposed to get statements from have lived up to their own contracts. It's appalling. Labels are (imo) a bigger problem than illegal downloads.

This is pretty much all that needs to be said really and I hear it time and time again.

Can you make it on your own?

The thing that is always wondering me, are people that are wondering why newcomers already ask for too much. Saying that it's normal for labels to give them such deals that I came across.

My experience might be worst, but I was having a strange time dealing with labels. First of all, I got requested randomly over a social community for releasing an E.P. What kept me back was mostly the label having an attitude like "We don't really care which tunes. All stuff you do is great. Just finish it.". I felt a bit like *anybody* and I think this is true for a lot of labels. If you already feel like this from the very first step in communicating with people that are going to earn the major part from your creative work it's just a big show stopper.

Music means a lot for me and if someone is about to release it, I might just ask for a little more enthusiasm. There should be a certain connection. Truth might be also that I'm putting too many emotions in this thing and what could happen to my music. Maybe just be thankful for having it out there and people enjoying it for some time, no matter if they paid for it or not. But then again, you simply could put it out there and no one would care to leech it, simply because it's free.

I think soundcloud and the likes could help steer artists that are releasing on labels to instead release music from their website

Someone fairly big in dance music (cant remember who and cant find the track) put up a new track recently on soundcloud and instead of the "buy on beatport" button it had something like "buy from online shop" or something similar
makes perfect sense when you think about it

However you would think that part of their financial gain would come from hoping that soundcloud (or the artists own site) becomes bigger than beatport, id imagine there is quite a gap there yet...

quote:

Originally posted by trancedanne Every tune he made got played on ASOT and as far as i know ASOT has millions of listeners every week. This just shows how few people who actually buy the music they listen to but its also because the scene is so ridiculously diluted. Make a track and you can find thousands of similar tracks released every week.

yes ASOT is the measurement of what tracks are good
people dont buy his music because it sucks.
not because it was on ASOT or not.


please not another blueman sucking dick thread.

quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi I found one of my tracks in a monthly "beatport best of techno" pack on one of the major piracysites. considering that I am still to see any statements, let alone payouts,I really don't mind it. free publicity and being associated with bigger names is aLways a good thing. fickle I haTe typing on this android lol

agreed on some levels. But, it�s not ideal that day after you�ve released a track, the 100 first hits on google are piracysites or shady russian forums...

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox No, you give me a break. All Blueman has released is 13 tracks. 5 of them were rated "track of the week", 2 were voted #1 from TATW's weekly web vote, Florescence made the top 25 best trance choons of 2010. And are you ready for this... >>>> 11 <<<< of his 13 tracks were voted into the top 1000 trance tunes in HISTORY. That was out of *10,000* nominees. Thats pretty damn impressive no matter who you are or whether you like his music or not. 84% of his tracks made it in. Show me another artist who had that many tracks voted for. I doubt there is even 1.

this says alot about the quality of todays trance lol. nothing more. thats like winning the award for richest aborigine, it doesnt really say anything about how rich he actually is. common people you are retarded, get over this. just look at sales numbers, he is probably amongs the bottom 1000 trance artists there. trance is dead.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz This is pretty much all that needs to be said really and I hear it time and time again.

So true. Storyteller just nailed it with that statement. Labels power molest you on demand with zero lube, at least the majority do.

quote:

Originally posted by sleeping agreed on some levels. But, it�s not ideal that day after you�ve released a track, the 100 first hits on google are piracysites or shady russian forums...

The way I see it, when I release a track on a relatively new and unknown label, the fact that my track appeared in a pack with other tracks, means that more people are going to hear my song and see my name. i know alot of djs download packs like that, and if my song start appearing in mixes that's more exposure for me. and people don't even have to listen to the mixes, just people seeing my name in tracklists is enough to be noticed.

if you're gonna make it in EDM you have two choices;
1.whore yourself out to the bigger labels and quite possibly get screwed over after a short period of what seems like success, but unless you have something really special to offer, you'll most likely burn up and fade away quickly.
2.try to appeal to the underground. that means having to play alot of free gigs, and start with a small group of followers and just build on that, mostly by word of mouth. takes alot longer than being featured on ASOT, but your fans will probably be fans forever, so a longer career is expected.

this should probably have been rewritten a couple of times, but it's 4:20 so I can't be bothered. I hope it kinda makes sense.

quote:

Originally posted by clay yes ASOT is the measurement of what tracks are good people dont buy his music because it sucks. not because it was on ASOT or not. please not another blueman sucking dick thread.

True - when the fuck did ASOT become the yardstick by which good music is measured? It is not an indication of quality nor sales figures. And those top 5,10,100 or 1000 lists are utterly meaningless; they are either polls which are notoriously inaccurate or someone's particular bais, either one of which isn't worth the paper they're written on.

Even if I were to go along with Blueman's sucess based on a top 1000 poll, the ones I could find all had PVD, Oakenfold, Armin and Ferry having more tracks in the top 500 than Blueman had in the top 1000.

Blueman quit becuase he had no where else to go with his disposable brand of trace, other than repetition. He also saw the kind of money involved in scoring and thought he would like some of that cake, but sadly like others before him have found out, it's not quote that simple.

Don't get me wrong, I know a bunch of EDM guys from the 90's who got in to commercial music production and do quite nicely (The Trouser Enthusists, for one), so it's understandable that trying to scrabble around for some beatport revenue from a label that continues to fuck you is not a great plan for finanacial stability.

Back OT, Storyteller is right - those that see the current status quo as problems,are not the ones coming up with the solutions, and those that view the situaion as a challenge, however hippy it may sound, ar the ones coming up with ideas.

The current state of EDM labels and the commercial aspects of EDM is so bad, it's doing more harm than good, whereas at least piracy gets you out there.

Do I like the idea of my music being given away for free? no.

Do I like the idea of a label selling it and giving me nothing? FUCKING HELL NO.

In other words I prefer it be given away for free and at least getting my name out there than some cvnt making money off my work and giving me nothing.

Frankly if this was any other industry (retail, design, real estate, whatever etc), these people would be in prison (or at least shut down long ago) for material breach of contract and accounting fraud. Think about, I cannot think of any other industry where contracts are so routinely broken without any negative consequences.

Unfortunately, the negative consequences are passed on to the artist, through the resulting piracy (and let's remember, it's actually the labels job to protect your material) and loss of revenue.

quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi if you're gonna make it in EDM you have two choices; 1.whore yourself out to the bigger labels and quite possibly get screwed over after a short period of what seems like success, but unless you have something really special to offer, you'll most likely burn up and fade away quickly. 2.try to appeal to the underground. that means having to play alot of free gigs, and start with a small group of followers and just build on that, mostly by word of mouth. takes alot longer than being featured on ASOT, but your fans will probably be fans forever, so a longer career is expected. this should probably have been rewritten a couple of times, but it's 4:20 so I can't be bothered. I hope it kinda makes sense.

myself ,and and i do hope that many others too, dont have the urge for claim to fame. I never had and will never have plans to "make it" in this industry because, let�s face it. I dont have the time, economical security or desire to let my whole life depend on my "career" as a producer. I just make music beacuse it�s fun, in a very selfish way.

I look at it this way, labels are just a way for me to get my tracks into the mainstream, so they can then be disseminated for free. I don't expect to ever see a dime. I get the sales reports, and I typically sell 4 or 5 units per release. My tracks are pirated far and wide, I'm guessing the pirates are the ones who buy them. So I sell tracks to a pirate, who then shares them with the world. If I tried to release my tracks for free, they would get lost in the shuffle. When my tracks hit beatport, I can know for sure that they will be disseminated for free all over the internet. Illegal downloads don't hurt my sales at all, the way I see it. Music is pretty much free now, any MP3 can be found via Google, or listened to on youtube, last.fm, ect. Yes, all this free music means lower revenue for artists. They try to make up for the loss with live gigs, sponsors, licensing, merchandise. I don't know how some of these EDM labels are surviving, the ones that have offices and employees. That's another topic though.

Very interesting reading here, someone wrote long time ago that, people who do illegal downloads wouldnt even bother to buy it so I think it really doesnt affect that much.

I kinda start notice that people dont care about music that much anymore as you can type everything on google and download it not really getting to know the artist ect. (I am not saying about us who live with music 24/7

I still would like to get back to old vinyls/cds days ... anyway about labels the good thinkg about them is that they gather some good artist and by knowing someone already from that one label you can track some other you might never heard of and which could be really hard to find if that artist would like to promote by himself .

I will put myself here as example nobody even heard about me as I am bedroom producer as thousands out there. I would like to promote myself and reach some wider audience but I need to first thing out some plans how to do that.

I think that if artists would make some alliance or whatever and do sell music by themselves it could be maybe some idea to go. We would run out off the labels and there would only be left producers and djs which I think is enought in that bussiness, producers make music give them for free for djs they play them out promote and someone who find out what track he plays just go to his site and buy directly from the artist. I wish it would be like that someday

this is my plan.

im gonna setup a website, a facebook, twitter, blogspot and a soundcloud all with the same name, linked to each other, not giving away whether its a label, artist, distributor, promoter or what teh fuck, no info what so ever - just a merged platform of all big social medias.

then im gonna post new tracks for free for everyone and spam it everywhere - atleast two tracks a month (have quite a few almost ready already).

each track will have a new alias so it just becomes completely retarded and impossible to understand who made it.

the track titles and aliases will be more retarded and random than any of my previous works.

i will not let myself be limited by any genre either, i will try to make each new song within a different genre (within electronic) but with the biggest weight on ambient, breaks, dnb and house.

at some point ill make albums of these various aliases and spam it everywhere yet again.

this way i can keep complete artistic integrity without any genre-limitaions, label letdowns or anything.

everything will be avaliable as both wav and mp3.

i much rather have fans following my websites than some artist name or label name.

then i have no idea, i just want to share all my ideas with the world, and today we have that opportunity bigger that ever.

if you forget about money completely todays music and technology can breed great things.

my dad always says that if he was young today hed do nothing but make music on computers and share it everywhere online, he sort of envy our availability today and i see his point.

back then he had to hire a record studio for a week just to make a single 12" together with some friends, and it costed them quite a lot.

No one should really complain today, the world is just waiting for someone to find/make the right platform.


edited for weak readers

@ Clay, Drogtech & Zodiac

As producers you guys know enough not to record a squashed block of music, but when it comes to posts on the internet you seem to think its ok lol.

PLEASE PLEASE, like DJ Rann does, double space your posts.
Its not hard, after every sentence or 2 just press enter. =]

It really makes a big difference.
There is a lot of great advice in this post and no I never considered ASOT a measure of anything. So you are right DJ Rann that doesn't mean shit realistically. But I'm trying to think of other ways you could measure an artists talent in an objective light and I can't think of a lot more ways to do it.

I also don't understand why popular music is disposable wouldn't it be the other way around (@storyteller)? If a song is good its good. Whether its popular or not I don't think it would matter. Unless you're trying to say its the overexposure that kills the music?

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox @ Clay, Drogtech & Zodiac As producers you guys know enough not to record a squashed block of music, but when it comes to posts on the internet you seem to think its ok lol. PLEASE PLEASE, like DJ Rann does, double space your posts. Its not hard, after every sentence or 2 just press enter. =] It really makes a big difference.

Lol, so fucking true. It really hurts my head (in the same way over compressed music does).

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox There is a lot of great advice in this post and no I never considered ASOT a measure of anything. So you are right DJ Rann that doesn't mean shit realistically. But I'm trying to think of other ways you could measure an artists talent in an objective light and I can't think of a lot more ways to do it. I also don't understand why popular music is disposable wouldn't it be the other way around (@storyteller)? If a song is good its good. Whether its popular or not I don't think it would matter. Unless you're trying to say its the overexposure that kills the music?

Fair point - I suppose the conversation here is about popularity not having a bearing on quality. Take Guetta for instance; he's so damn popular amongst a particular demographic (musically uneducated youth and people who don't understand english lyrics) yet he produces lowest common denominator cheesey commercial house, that although well engineered in some cases, is musically abhorrent.

one thing I've realised about business is that people (or at least the masses) are sheep - they follow other people, blindly in some cases, and often will believe something is cool, just because others like it, or it's marketed in the right way.

I'll give you an exact example: there a popular Boutique shopping empire called Kitson here in LA. They built their sucess, by paying Paris Hilton at the peak of her fame, many thousands of dollars to shop in their stores, whist calling TMZ to make sure they filmed it.

What happens? droves of dweebs and wannabe's from the mid west flock to kitson so they can say "I bought it there". It's overpriced and in many cases bad quality, but they can't keep their shelves stocked.

So back to you point, there is really no way to measure the value of art or the talent of an artist. Some thing are obviously apparent - when you hear a track that you know will be a classic, either in the respect that it typifies a particular point in time or that it is timeless.
But I'll be honest, 99% of all EDM is disposable. It was like that 15 years ago (albeit slightly less as there were production based filters (like the costs of equipment and vinyl pressing) that negated some bad material from ever making it out to release) and it's like that today. Very few tracks stand out and very few artists can repeatedly produce great music.

i must admit i was never good on communication.

quote:

Originally posted by clay this is my plan. im gonna setup a website, a facebook, twitter, blogspot and a soundcloud all with the same name, linked to each other, not giving away whether its a label, artist, distributor, promoter or what teh fuck, no info what so ever - just a merged platform of all big social medias. then im gonna post new tracks for free for everyone and spam it everywhere - atleast two tracks a month (have quite a few almost ready already). each track will have a new alias so it just becomes completely retarded and impossible to understand who made it. the track titles and aliases will be more retarded and random than any of my previous works. i will not let myself be limited by any genre either, i will try to make each new song within a different genre (within electronic) but with the biggest weight on ambient, breaks, dnb and house. at some point ill make albums of these various aliases and spam it everywhere yet again. this way i can keep complete artistic integrity without any genre-limitaions, label letdowns or anything. everything will be avaliable as both wav and mp3. i much rather have fans following my websites than some artist name or label name. then i have no idea, i just want to share all my ideas with the world, and today we have that opportunity bigger that ever. if you forget about money completely todays music and technology can breed great things.

Renard Queenston.

quote:

Originally posted by Scrittah Renard Queenston.

not free. looks like a label actually.

quote:

Originally posted by clay not free. looks like a label actually.

Not all of it's free, but the guy is very pro-piracy and gives away tons of free tracks on tumblr, youtube, etc. And it is one guy operating under tons of aliases.

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