i havent worked with many labels but out of the the ones i have spellbinding recordings have been brilliant and ive received good money from 2 tracks in perticular with detailed description of sales etc, defo one label i recomend to new artist if they have some good tracks, a bigger label i have worked with i havent even seen a penny even tho the track charted similar to the others :P

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Originally posted by Excess it doesn't. honestly, i think niche music is always going to remain just that and anyone who strictly produces said music is going to fail at making a living unless they're in the top tier of said niche. i don't think it's possible for a trance/prog producer to make a living strictly from productions, no matter how much fixing into the model goes in. there's only x amount of people willing to even listen to the stuff and unless a major is pushing your work to the masses and you're at the tippy top of your specialty genre it's just not feasible

It's not just the niche genres being affected the same problems exist all across the board, and its bigger than the music industry. All the time you hear people say the money is in the live show but even that is getting harder. The economy is shit, people don't have the money to go out, clubs are suffering, so they book acts that are willing to play for free (or even pay to play!). No real talent in the clubs, audience doesn't get an education, people with real influence all throw money at the tried and true "safe" acts because the audience doesn't give a shit or know any better. No one is taking chances


regarding the live show:

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Not a bad article, but I gotta say, as a musician, I don't think things are looking up for local musicians. Everyone thinks that the only way musicians make money is by touring and I've been there and we make squat. You have to tour and tour and tour and tour for a return and then you can get something for the time. We sell music in itunes and all the other places and get chickenfeed from them. It is silly to get paid so little for all the so called help we get from the modern major players. I sometimes hear, "you guys are really popular on edonkey" and stuff like that, but it doesn't translate into $$$ either. we sell cds and are on bandcamp too. The mindset of many though is not to pay for music. Musicians just make it anyway, it is weird. We have to have sidejobs though and the Louis CK model only works for top artists like Radiohead and it is hard to get discovered...[...]...the system for musicians is screwed, I just hope that people support their local scene and pay the local working musicians the $5 for the albums we sell if they like them. Merch is also a key ingredient of small artist sales too. We always have to use the cash from all these sales to funnel into the cost of pressing the physical cds, but even that is becoming a waste of time but some people want the item, so we make it still. anyway, just sayin' I guess...

and that's from a touring band, not a bedroom producer. Even bands don't hope to make anything just selling records so you REALLY shouldn't cause you're a niche of a niche of a niche. I get this sense that most of the quality productions coming out are being made by people in various stages of naive hope and disillusion. Like it's just this ongoing cycle of people giving it a shot then giving up and thats where all the good tunes are coming form, like a revolving door. Little short bursts of inspiration from naive producers who get paid fuckall and that keeps the labels alive just a little longer till the next schmuck comes along. Music isn't free to make. It takes real time and real money and a lot of energy to deliver something people will remember and realistically if that means you have to starve yourself in the meantime well guess what you'd be crazy to keep doing it


People are always going to steal your shit because they can and don't care or they just foster their own sense of entitlement to free shit by lying to themselves like "oh im just screwing the label by downloading this, the artist doesnt get anything anyway" or "bands make all of their money off touring so it doesn't matter" which is creating this massive karmic debt that everyone has to pay but it is what it is, that's where the technology has brought us so embrace it and move on


Keep it fun and get a job where you still have time to work on music and just hammer away at a live show. It's more fun to play out anyway, and fuckin nothing ruins good music quicker than putting pressure on making money from it. You'll second-guess yourself over and over and water it down till you end up with a homogenized piece of shit where a good song used to be.

Anyway I think a lot of bright musicians are just biding their time waiting for this thing to figure itself out. I mean there is like nothing sustainable about the world right now, have fun and make some good tunes in the meantime before shit gets REALLY bad

Well, you're right but it's not about no money being around.

Go to any starbucks at any given time - they're always rammed and their shit is badly overpriced but somehow people can still manage $5 a day for a single cup of coffee.

I own a business here in LA and it's doing nicely. I have to work damn hard for every penny but we're doing OK. I know tons of bsuiness owners. Sure it's not 2005 where you were turning people away from too much business, but still, at least in the big cities around the world, people are still making money and getting paid.

In the 90's when vinyl was booming in the UK, it was slap bang in the mdst of the worst recession for decades. People were losing their jobs and houses following the boom of the 80's yet EDM and vinyl sales in that recession were absolutely thriving.

It's what you touched on; people expect not to have to pay for it, and it's a difficult mindset to fix, but some don't really want it fixed.

I actually think Armin is a lot to blame at least when it comes to trance - I've got a conspiracy theory that he has manipulated the market: His team put ou the ASOT torrent/download packages in both split track and mix format with a cue list as he doesn't give a shit if the tracks from other producers (or even his own) are downloaded as a torrent for free as he makes all his money from giant ASOT gigs. He's happy to give the music all away for free just to market himself and make money on the touring and merchandise. Even for other producers, they now have to go through him to get exposure. He, and others at the top are probably happy to have the status quo where it is, as they are making tons by being at the top of the pile. It's fucked.

I've said this before, and while not wanting to turn this in to a piracy thread again (which none of us need) the situation needs a few simple remedies:

1, Carrot and Stick when it comes to changes the economics - STICK: make it really difficult as a process to pirate music (shut down the offending sites, flood the sites you can't shut with bullshit downloads/virii/trackers/DDS attacks etc, while simultaneously making legit downloads very cheap and incredibly easy.

The satellite industry did a couple of years ago and it really was a masterclass. Piracy is reserved now for a few ardent and incredibly persistent hackers who are super techy and have to jump through so many hoops it's basically not worth it. They made a few high profile busts on the coders who were trying to crack the new encryption and all the coders just walked away as it's not worth going to jail for 15 years to give people you don't even know free TV.

2, CARROT: make distribution fair, easy and simple. artists get a good chunk, and it's super easy for consumers to get legit downloads. With the satellite industry, all the occasional and regular pirates just gave up and bought the now cheaper subscriptions to netflix/sat/cable etc.

There will always be money in the top part any industry (and those that have it will do everything to keep it that way) but there's no good reason currently that the industry gives so little to everyone else.

there will also always be money in touring as people will pay for an experience, but both producers and smaller labels need to wake up and stop letting themselves get fucked because if you expect to get shafted, then you will.

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Originally posted by MSZ Yea if all keep living inside the same box ofcourse it never will. The system is set-up for failure. Its too bad I know nothing about business, seriously contemplating going back to school.

Knowing about business is not really the point, instead just consider your own human nature. Millions of good authors don;t make a dime, you don't give any daily thought to this, so why should the public give any eneregy or thought to our productions?

Unless one of us makes something exceptional, then we deserve nothing. Being honest here, we all pretty much make fairly derivative okish music, nothing more, although a couple of guys here have the potential.

Peronsally I'm reall cool with this. I deserve nothing. It irratates me when people expect adulation.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN 1, Carrot and Stick when it comes to changes the economics -

I'd be up for setting up a sales platform - Amazon and Beatport are damned terrible when it comes to doing a search and just browing and navigating.

I just don't get how the developers of sites like this are soooooooo think and unintuative, it drives me up the wall.

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streaming.

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Originally posted by Richard Butler Knowing about business is not really the point, instead just consider your own human nature. Millions of good authors don;t make a dime, you don't give any daily thought to this, so why should the public give any eneregy or thought to our productions? Unless one of us makes something exceptional, then we deserve nothing. Being honest here, we all pretty much make fairly derivative okish music, nothing more, although a couple of guys here have the potential. Peronsally I'm reall cool with this. I deserve nothing. It irratates me when people expect adulation.

To me your views are pathetic. Remind me to stay clear of you.

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Originally posted by Richard Butler Knowing about business is not really the point, instead just consider your own human nature. Millions of good authors don;t make a dime, you don't give any daily thought to this, so why should the public give any eneregy or thought to our productions? Unless one of us makes something exceptional, then we deserve nothing. Being honest here, we all pretty much make fairly derivative okish music, nothing more, although a couple of guys here have the potential. Peronsally I'm reall cool with this. I deserve nothing. It irratates me when people expect adulation.

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Originally posted by MSZ To me your views are pathetic. Remind me to stay clear of you.

I hope RB is just being sarcastic. If not, that's a very self defeating attitude. I don't want adulation, I want fair compensation. Same for most of us here.

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Originally posted by MSZ Those tricky bastards have like a 15 page contract right?

Not sure, never seen an Armada contract. Dont know for sure how they use my remix.

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Originally posted by Richard Butler Unless one of us makes something exceptional, then we deserve nothing. Being honest here, we all pretty much make fairly derivative okish music, nothing more, although a couple of guys here have the potential. Peronsally I'm reall cool with this. I deserve nothing. It irratates me when people expect adulation.

Agree. If a product is truly exceptional and fulfilling demand fans/listeners/consumers will appear and be willing to pay. Very realistic point of view. (This post looks like you've read Seth Godin - The Purple Cow).

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Originally posted by zodiac9 I hope RB is just being sarcastic. If not, that's a very self defeating attitude. I don't want adulation, I want fair compensation. Same for most of us here.

Technically you do. Unless of course you were held at gunpoint while signing your contract or signed before the year 2000 when the illegal downloading trend started to become apparent. There's really 3 options here:
1. Take the matter into your own hands and start some business of your own that does work
2. Sit down and feel sorry for yourself, point finger at lousy labels and listeners that refuse to pay for your music while they should
3. Accept the fact that illegal downloads are an existing threat you just have to deal with

I do think there are solutions to the problem. Being exceptional is one of the key things in the equation. Not so much being exceptional as a musician, but mostly as a service towards consumers.

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If less is more think about how much more more would be. -Frasier

Last edited by Storyteller on Aug-05-2012 at 20:37

Piracy is ok for me. Im happy to see someone download my tracks as it means wider audience. Thats why I release my music in the first place - to get my tracks heared and liked. I would trade 10 000 track sales for 1 000 000 free listeners any time. But when it gets to the point where someone else is using my music to make money and I get nothing out of it, then it makes no sense to me.

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