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Settle this one once and for all - 'there's no money in releasing now'.
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| Richard Butler |
Specifically talking about track revenues here, not performing fees which I know many producers live off which in turn are fed by thier 'profitless' releases 'merely' there as profile raising agents.
First off, I don't personaly mind if there is or not as I have my day job for earnings, but it's a source of much confusion that one camp claims there is no money and the next claims there is and this is now getting ludicrous as they cant both be right.
I read every issue of FM and most times you will read in the same issue one producer claiming all the money has gone out of releasing and the next saying they make a steady living.
So one of these camps is wrong, which is it? Again, not talking about DJing or performance fees here.
In any event some producers never perform - so what the fek are they living on?
EXAMPLE;
In FM this month they had a central spread - 'Set up your own label'.
Some label owners implied revenues are good and yet another said there is no money at all in releasing now (indeed he said thats why he cant employ anyone despite having a VERY sucesful label).
MY BEST GUESS;
I know from my own non music business, there are people who make £300k pa profit as one man traders and others that make nothing and go out of business.
My hunch is it's probably the same in music. Discuss. |
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| echosystm |
| Film scores, advertisements and producing for other people is where da gold at. You will get sweet all releasing a song on Beatport. |
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| tehlord |
I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, have a day job and just do this as a hobby but i've wondered the same thing.
I believe we have a forum member who's sold more than a few singles on Beatport. Maybe he can shed some light on it. |
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| Storyteller |
There's only few producers that can make a living out of music. It's either the more popular artists or the ones that are able to finish about 3-5 tracks a week.
Releasing your own music through your own label is a bit more work but your income will increase significantly, most of the times it will at least double.
And as echosystem said. Working project based is def where it's at. |
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| Richard Butler |
| quote: | Originally posted by Storyteller
or the ones that are able to finish about 3-5 tracks a week.
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That's amazing really, being able to finish that many per week. Funnily enough there was a producer in FM that cliamed to bang our 4 tracks per week - I thought I was seeing things. |
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| Storyteller |
Well I know of only one capable of doing so right now. He does ghostwriting for a couple of guys, has a variety of aliases for himself and releases on a variety of well known trance labels such as Armada and Anjuna. It's crazy really.
There's even compilation cd's where he produced over half of all the tracks on there! :crazy: |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Storyteller
Well I know of only one capable of doing so right now. He does ghostwriting for a couple of guys, has a variety of aliases for himself and releases on a variety of well known trance labels such as Armada and Anjuna. It's crazy really.
There's even compilation cd's where he produced over half of all the tracks on there! |
Yeah, I heard of a guy who has ghostwritten whole "artist albums" for one of the more popular trance guys. Maybe the same person, who knows. |
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| Mr.Mystery |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
That's amazing really, being able to finish that many per week. |
It is amazing, though perhaps not in the same sense you meant. The outcome will suffer greatly from that sort of pace. |
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| Storyteller |
| That would depend on the persons talent in my opinion. I bought about 60 tracks from the guy I'm talking about in the past 18 months. Considering I only buy about 10 tracks a month on average I'd say he isn't doing bad. At least not from my perspective :). |
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| DjStephenWiley |
I may be able to chime in here a bit as I get to deal with these distributors directly.
As the original poster said, you're in the wrong "business" if producing dance music is your craft. If it's anything more than a hobby with a hope, you need a reality check. The only time money is ever seen is when its picked up on the commercial front from big companies which is very rare. I personally don't know a mildly successful producer to ever land a track with a big business.
This goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. File sharing has ruined the prospect for $ and ran off a ton of talented people. I know many here are new and probably don't fully understand how big the death of vinyl was, but it changed everything.
When vinyl was around, it would cost somebody a good $300 to get a nice bag of records every month or so to stay ahead with the music. That doesn't include the expensive gear (technics) and needles, etc. Now you have kids stealing intellectual property and "DJ'ing" with their laptops and its socially (and unfortunately) acceptable, so this further devalues music from both a monetary and production quality standpoint.
Anyway, I'll quit my obvious ranting of why music is bad these days.
The only thing that matters is how many units you can move. Nobody even looks at the dollar figures anymore. Not worth the time at all. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| The death of vinyl has little to do with file-sharing. It would have died anyway even if everyone bought only legal MP3s and WAVs, since digital files are much, much cheaper to buy and distribute, and also more convenient: you hardly ever have to buy an entire release just to get the one or two tracks you like, you never have to lug around a box of records, you never have to visit a physical store or wait on shipping, and so on. |
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