# Must-Read Text On The New Business Model For Music



## Ned Bouhalassa (Apr 26, 2012)

Grab a coffee (or 2) and read this like your future depended on it:

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/201 ... full-post/


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## wst3 (Apr 26, 2012)

wow! that's maybe the best argument I've read yet. Well reasoned, well written. Thanks for sharing.


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## spoon (Apr 26, 2012)

Thank you. Somehow scary.


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## Mike Greene (Apr 26, 2012)

That's a long read, but a really good one. Thanks for pointing it out.


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## germancomponist (Apr 26, 2012)

Mike Greene @ Thu Apr 26 said:


> That's a long read, but a really good one. Thanks for pointing it out.



+1

Thks Ned for sharing!


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Apr 26, 2012)

What? Did ya really think I was going to be depressed alone? Let's all cry together! :( :| :cry: 

There's so many smart people making music - someone has to come up with a better system, no?


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## midphase (Apr 26, 2012)

I wanted to chime in with a couple of things:

1. For those of you who scanned the article and quickly determined that it didn't appeal to you since you're not a band or songwriter...think again. Simply substitute the words music and band with film and director and the picture looks much more dark for us huh? The film industry is undergoing the same exact issue. Assuming that the majority of people here are not fortunate enough to work on studio films or network TV shows, you can quickly see how lack of revenue for independent producers and directors quickly trickles down to composers. I have seen a precipitous drop in independent film budgets over the past 5 years. Gone for the most part are the $5mil-ish films, replaced with the $500k-ish and many times much lower than that. I know too many filmmakers who not too long ago were directing or producing films for well over the $1mil point, and who are now trying to figure out if they can self-finance their next venture in the $30k range. Guess what the music budget is on a $30,000 film?

2. The answer to the conundrum that the article presents is to withdraw our content from YouTube, Amazon, iTunes, Google and any such organizations based on the idea that those outlets are simply not paying out a fair percentage of the profits. For all intents and purposes, the author seems to point toward the need to a massive creative strike on a global scale which would theoretically bring the like of YouTube or the iTunes store to its knees.
Meanwhile back on planet Earth, this is never going to happen...and we have cheap software and a decrease in the audience's quality standards to thank for it. For as long as there are hobbyists and amateur part-time week-end warriors, there will be an endless stream of content arriving at the doorsteps of those media giants. What the record labels learned a long time ago is that crappy content doesn't pay. What the net giants of today are learning is that crappy content does pay...and in spades! YouTube makes money the moment you click on a video link, in some cases the advertising is displayed before the actual content...so even if you end up hating the video you're watching...it's too late, YouTube has made money off of you!

I don't know where things are headed, what I am seeing is an exodus away from creative careers into jobs that might be somewhat related but are a far cry from what we all signed up for. I'm seeing far too many of my friends take up teaching jobs, moving into sound design/mixing, creating sample libraries, writing books, get involved in other online ventures, or quite simply relying on a spouse or partner (or parents in some cases) who has a more reliable form of income. Whoever can stick it out does, and those who can't are forced to look into something else.


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## chimuelo (Apr 26, 2012)

Great article and I totally agree with Midphase. 
I made tons of cash as an extra while performing back in '80's and '90's with SAG wavers, while performing, and half of the time the scene wasn't used, but there were serious budgets compared to now.

Now the film crews walk through and there are no wavers anywhere, but the Casino gives them permission, but if the name of the Casino is fictional they must pay somebody a hefty fee.
But I haven't signed a SAG waver since '93.
As a matter of fact when the Mafia ran Vegas I was making 965 USD a week in 1984 as a 3 way split since I had a QX-1 but wasn't as pretty as the big busty blonde I hired.
I am contracting now and after taxes, insurances, SIIS weekly's I am lucky to take home 4 figures.
This is why I am evolving into the Conventions, where you work less and make more.
In my business, it gets harder and pays less as you get older, and if you can't hang and bang, you should have moved to DC and become a Federal something or other, as those gigs are paying really well from what I hear.


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## noiseboyuk (Apr 26, 2012)

Good article. But one HUGE gap - royalties from radio / TV. That still works, and it's significant. So little time and energy is spent improving this, compared to the time spent analyzing youtube and direct sales.

Also I only half bought the point about recording costs having stayed the same. It very much depends on the genre. People have made hits on Abelton in their bedrooms, they hadn't 30 years ago. Even in the big leagues, there are other reasons why albums typically don't take so long to record. I just watched the BBC's Classic Albums on Peter Gabriel's So. 97 different 2 inch reels for In Your Eyes, all of which needed physically editing together on an instrument by instrument basis, a task I can scarcely comprehend. Now we have Pro Tools.

Conversely, what wasn't discussed - surprisingly - was the cost of the producer. The big names aren't cheap, and never were.

I may be displaying my ignorance here - yet again - but the opportunity I see here is in the independent record label, or even just an independent PR company. Record companies are still vital for PR, but not for much else. They still have a pivotal, if diminished, role. So where are the new, focused companies whose overheads are smaller than the giants? Who can pay a little more to the artist because there is less for them to do? Like I say, in effect artists can manage themselves relatively easily these days - except when it comes to PR. So I'd expect to see bands signing deals with PR companies more than record companies.

(this may already exist... that's where I'm ignorant!)

Don't get me wrong - it's a very good article, well researched and thought provoking. The point was well made about success stories being equivalent to lottery winners. Very hard to get an accurate assessment though, in the end success and horror stories seem to be largely anecdotal.


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## wst3 (Apr 27, 2012)

I had to re-read the sections about the cost of recording a couple times... I think he is on the right track, but does not explain it as clearly as he does other issues.

Recording today is potentially less expensive. You can do quite a bit in your spare room with a computer, some software, and a bit of talent.

What you can NOT do with that limited tool set is create an album that sounds as huge as the best professionally recorded stuff.

There is the additional talent and vision brought to the equation by experienced mixers and producers (yeah, you got that part right!). There is the sound of a purpose built space - and you can't cheat that... yet. There is the sound quality of a well designed and well maintained studio.

The problem is, well, almost no one cares any more about any of that stuff. Once it gets squashed down to an MP3 and streamed across the net you lose a lot of those benefits (and we used to cry about FM processing!!)

So I think the real answer is that recording costs have come down a little, but the cost of the talent has not come down as much as the cost of the tools. And if you want to sound as good as "So" then you will have to spend.

Editing down multiple mult-track reels... not something I'd beg to do again, but you know, it was fun when it was the only way. Really... it was fun - if I say that often enough I might believe it<G>!


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## noiseboyuk (Apr 27, 2012)

wst3 @ Fri Apr 27 said:


> Editing down multiple mult-track reels... not something I'd beg to do again, but you know, it was fun when it was the only way. Really... it was fun - if I say that often enough I might believe it<G>!



Rather you than me - I don't miss physical editing for one microsecond!

So took 10 months to record. Would be fascinating to know what it would have taken with DAWs. There again, they were going so slowly that Daniel Lanois locked Gabriel in his own cowshed to finish his lyrics apparently, so perhaps all that editing just happened in the background while waiting for the muse to hit.

Muse aside, I'd be amazed if big projects weren't significantly quicker to do now. Every take from every song is right there and can be cut and pasted. That's revolutionary stuff.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Apr 27, 2012)

Should composers/musicians start a petition asking Apple to significantly lower the 30% it takes off the top for iTunes' sales? Could we force Apple to get more involved in helping musicians with recording/marketing costs? Would it help to try to make this a very visible issue? I would think that companies like Apple are very concerned with their image and wouldn't want the general population to think that they're actually worse than the old record labels.


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## wst3 (Apr 27, 2012)

Ned - you can ask, certainly, but I'm afraid even in my optimistic, completely detached from reality world a company won't give back money unless they see a HUGE upside, meaning even more money for them. The shareholders would vote out the executives so quickly!

Do I think (again in my little world) that Apple might get more involved if they didn't have to please Wall Street? Yeah, but they do have to keep Wall Street happy.

Guy- that's not the only album I've wondered about - how would Tubular Bells have turned out with modern technology? Heck, he was basically following the same workflow made popular by tools like ACID and even early sequencers (think Texture).

Physically editing tape was, among other things, a really educational process... you learned a lot about how sound worked when you sliced tape. It also helped you keep things in perspective - or at least it helped me. Errors that we might fix today were left in because the risk exceeded the reward. In fact I try to evaluate edits on the basis of whether or not I would have made them 30 years ago.

As far as costs go - I think an artist like Peter Gabriel, or Don Henley (another one famous for his fastidious nature) is still going to spend a ton of time tweaking. I think they probably make more edits, in the same or less time, because technology allows them to do so. The net result is probably a slightly lower cost of production, but I don't think it is huge.

That huge savings is real for artists who are just starting out - or rather it is there for them to take advantage of, should they choose to do so. I've worked with first time artists in the past. I charge a reasonable (for both the artist and me<G>) hourly fee to work with them in my studio. We work on the arrangements, we rehearse the performances, we cut guide tracks, and we might even cut some overdubs. But most, if not all of the 'real' tracks are cut at a 'real' studio - someplace with a great sounding room and well maintained equipment.

If we are using a lot of virtual instruments then we'll work on them at my place. And for the really adventurous we'll even take the first swipe at the mix. But the real mix is most often done at a more appropriate facility, and often by an engineer that mixes for a living.

Depending on the nature of the project, I might do some pre-mastering here, but if it deserves mastering it goes out again... to a facility - and engineer - that specializes in mastering.

If you compare hours, they spend more time with me. If you compare dollars, they spend a big chunk with the tracking facility, and a fair amount with the mix and mastering facilities.

When I finally build my next room it will be purpose built, and it will allow me to do more tracking, and mixing. I won't do mastering because I think that new set of ears is a big part of the benefit. And the space itself will (hopefully) handle small ensembles, but probably not a ten piece band<G>.

That's my 'new' model - I don't think I could build a large room facility and break even, but I can do what I do better.

I think that's the model that artists need to investigate as well. (See, I didn't digress nearly as much as it appeared<G>!) They can not change the reality that tech companies have come to control distribution. So they need to focus on the things that they can change.

Maybe they have a penchant for publicity? Maybe packaging design is their other forte. Whatever it is, they need to do those things that they can do well, and farm out the things that they can't. If they need to farm everything out then they need to set their expectations accordingly.

My hope is that a second tier will develop for things like publicity and distribution - that's sorta how the current powers got where they are. It may take a couple of iterations before it really takes hold... or, just as likely, if someone is successful they'll get bought up. That's the reality today.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 27, 2012)

Hmmm... decent article, and it makes a few good points. It also makes some bad/weak ones.

Good points:

1. All artists should have the ability to decide for themselves how to distribute their music. Nobody should take this right away from them.

2. Sites like beemp3, mp3skull, megaupload, etc. are definitely scummy.

3. The old record label model was in some ways better in that they assumed some risk.

Bad points:

1. iTunes doesn't deserve a 30% cut? This made no sense to me. They deserve whatever cut people feel they are worth. About 90% of my album revenue comes from iTunes. I make enough money from iTunes to pay my mortgage every month and more. It is a service of great value to me because almost everyone shops for music there, and they have a large 'install base'. Now, if a no-name site wanted 30% to sell my songs, that would be stupid and senseless... but iTunes is quite valuable to me. I would probably pay even more, if I had to.

2. YouTube etc. are eating our web traffic? Not sure that makes sense. Yes, if you're directly searching for an artist name, you might get some hits diverted to YouTube or some 3rd party site instead of your own website. But the very obvious point the author misses is that these sites provide a massive engine for discovery. I have gotten an insane amount of traffic from YouTube and built up a nice community of fans on Facebook. These are people who perhaps NEVER would have heard of me otherwise; they wouldn't just google my name.

3. Downloads, streams = lost sales/revenue? No doubt there are people who MAY have bought an album but instead chose to stream or download it for free. That much may be true. However, intentionally or unintentionally providing free music is another engine for driving traffic and attention. I attribute a lot of my personal music success to the dozens of free video game remixes I've done. People hear those and then listen to my original music. Likewise, quite a number of my fans said they heard me first on Pandora then went on to Like my artist page on Facebook, buy albums and so on. In fact, many of them purchase my entire 8-disc discography. That's nothing to scoff at. 

My own opinion on all this is that intellectual property laws are unfortunately a double edged sword. We ALL can agree that artists deserve to be able to control the price and distribution of their music. That's obvious. But I would imagine many of us would also agree that the lifetime of a creator plus 75 years is a fairly absurd length of time for copyright, and clearly pushed by companies like Disney to retain rights to their original characters. We all know that a young inventor who comes up with a novel idea deserves a monopoly on his invention for a little while, so he can profit from it. However, the idea of a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company sitting on life-saving drugs or charging $100,000+ for them most likely does not sit well with the empathetic among us.

We already know we can't un-ring the bell and put file-sharing etc. back in the box. It's just not possible. We also can't possibly go after every pirate or torrent website. Huge companies (and even governments) have tried and failed, so I don't believe there is any hope. So what can we do? I think as individual artists and composers, our best bet is to share ideas, techniques, strategies and experiences for survival. We can look at laws being discussed and try to influence our lawmakers with letters and phonecalls. But I think that is about all we can do at this point.


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## midphase (Apr 27, 2012)

zircon_st @ Fri Apr 27 said:


> About 90% of my album revenue comes from iTunes. I make enough money from iTunes to pay my mortgage every month and more.



Makes me wonder how much your mortgage is...care to share any hard numbers? The user reviews and "Likes" for your albums on iTunes don't seem to balance out what would need to be thousands of purchases each month and a lot more activity. Then again, you know best the checks you're actually receiving from Apple. If you're consistently getting a few thou from your album sales each month...good for you....congrats!


Ned, I think a step in the right direction would be to remove the aggregate services. I think Apple is moving towards that since releasing their iTunes Producer app a few months ago. I feel that it's only a matter of time before an artist can upload directly and sell on iTunes without having to go through a 3rd party.

Regarding YouTube, I talked to a friend of mine who does sketch comedy videos. He's gotten over 1 mil views and he says that's resulted in a few hundred $$$. Not enough to cover his expenses...maybe enough to continue buying pizzas and sodas for his cast and crews whom he asks repeatedly to work for free.


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## Arbee (Apr 27, 2012)

Great read, thanks for posting!

I'm involved with the book publishing industry and guess what, as we digitise yet another art form, the very same "New Bosses" are taking hold of the reins.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 27, 2012)

I think I don't get a lot of likes/user reviews because many people find me through Pandora and just buy on the spot from there. Plus, I have direct links to my iTunes album from my own website. In the interest of sharing information with fellow musicians, I made about $10k in profit from iTunes last year. Combine that with sales I get from Bandcamp and my own website (which are both pretty nice), SoundExchange royalties, and licensing and it's a very healthy revenue stream. Also keep in mind:

* I don't tour (at all)
* I didn't release any new albums in 2011
* I spent $0 on ads or marketing
* I didn't do any sort of PR whatsoever beyond updating my Facebook page, website and YouTube channel
* I didn't have a mailing list up and running
* I don't have any sort of agent, manager or label working on my behalf

With all that in mind, I think that my results were actually really good. I think any musician who works hard and actually releases new material, tours, actively promotes, etc. would do far better. I was just mostly focused on stuff like video game scoring work and sample libraries, so I didn't really have time to develop my career as an artist much.


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## midphase (Apr 27, 2012)

Thanks for sharing Andrew.

To address another point by Guy:

"I may be displaying my ignorance here [...] in effect artists can manage themselves relatively easily these days - except when it comes to PR. So I'd expect to see bands signing deals with PR companies more than record companies."

Well, PR companies operate on an hourly fee that they collect usually from the artists, management or label (or in our case composer, producer or studio). Anyone can hire a PR firm, and I know some composers who do on a regular basis, and some who do when they have a particular project being released.

It can be an expensive proposition, depending on what you're tasking the PR firm to do. Also, unlike advertising agencies, PR firms generally can't guarantee exposure. So you might be paying a PR Firm to send out a bunch of press releases and very few outlets might pick up on them if any. In the meantime you might be out anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousands depending who you hired. Very few bands or composers can afford to keep a PR firm on retainer for very long. Most can't afford one at all and try to do the PR themselves which yields even more uncertain results.


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## chimuelo (Apr 27, 2012)

zircon_st @ Fri Apr 27 said:


> 3. The old record label model was in some ways better in that they assumed some risk.
> 
> We already know we can't un-ring the bell and put file-sharing etc. back in the box. It's just not possible. We also can't possibly go after every pirate or torrent website. Huge companies (and even governments) have tried and failed, so I don't believe there is any hope. So what can we do? I think as individual artists and composers, our best bet is to share ideas, techniques, strategies and experiences for survival. We can look at laws being discussed and try to influence our lawmakers with letters and phonecalls. But I think that is about all we can do at this point.



It's the best argument and assesment I have ever heard, honest. Not just because I bought your Guitar stuff either. :mrgreen: 
Especially the assumption of Risk. A&M and ATCO would always use the best producer, and studio possible. Back in the day it was Rockefellar Center in their Atlantic Records location, and Criteria in Miami where the studio was the cover of Ocean blvd. by Clapton.
My last old model experience was Bobby Vintons label called Tapestry where the management were bottom feeders, and the producer a washed up drunk who had a good rep in LA but definately was in a slump. 
Since I never really made any great money excpet the split on the front money prior to recording, that's when I decided to promote myself as a sidemand and contractor. Sadly I've become so comfortable and busy emulating others I can barely write a full tune anymore. After being a live juke box all of the time.
But your ideas are most inspiring. 

Thanks for sharing.


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## SergeD (Apr 28, 2012)

Musicland is the third world...



Ned Bouhalassa @ Fri Apr 27 said:


> Should composers/musicians start a petition asking Apple to significantly lower the 30% it takes off the top for iTunes' sales?



Social network is the key. With all the talent, sense of humor and intelligence found in this forum, an hilarious clip about the Apple appetite could help a lot.

Put the clip on YouTube and, as a bonus, you got the petition starting right there...
Just remember the guy who made a song about his guitar damaged in some airport...


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## noiseboyuk (Apr 28, 2012)

Andrew - thanks for your posts, good for you - sounds like you're making it work.


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## snowleopard (Apr 29, 2012)

Maybe the moral of the story is to put all your money in Apple and Google stock. 
:shock:


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Apr 30, 2012)

What scares me is that some of the following will happen in the near future:

- everyone will expect every work of art (music, books, movies) or art/commerce to be 99 cents, or 9.99 a month, as part of a subscription stream

- the average professional artist will average 99 cents a day in royalties.

- no one who has to pay bills, rent, food, etc will be able to work on any art full-time. Except for mega-stars.

- that means very little mature work anymore, only 'cool' stuff done by young people living with their parents.

- concerts/live performances will once again only be for the members of the court, ie: the rich.

- merchandise (t-shirts, posters, figurines) will be deemed more important than the work that spawned it


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Apr 30, 2012)

PS: please note the use of the term 'near future', as in, next week.


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## dpasdernick (May 3, 2012)

It seems the days of flogging a guitar for millions a year may be over... The music business is now way more business than music. Even mega stars like Beyonce have to sell more than music (perfume, etc) to keep the fat cash rolling in. 

It's sad to think that a band like Steely Dan (a band that didn't tour) would not be able to make a living in this new world. Here we are in 2012 and Steely Dan was playing a casino in Oklahoma last year. How do you go from Aja to a casino in Oklahoma? Times have changed.

I think the part of the article that resonated the most with me was "In 2010 there were 75,000 albums released. Of those about 60,000 sold less than 100 copies. Only approximately 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Slightly less than 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. And you got to figure most of those artists were on record label artists."

I also love the part about "sell t-shirts" and the comeback that it's ridiculous to spend a ton of cash recording an album and try and offset it with t-shirt sales.

The good news is I just got my first royalty check from Spotify. .001 of a cent! A couple of ice ages from now and I'll be able to treat you all to a beer. (that's a single beer, please bring your own straws)

Brave new world my friends. But I will never give up music. It's just too darn cool.


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## Andrew Aversa (May 3, 2012)

I think it's quite possible for non-touring musicians to make a living. You just have to look at it as a business (as you said) and consider your revenue streams:

* Album sales
* Licensing (direct and via libraries/publishers)
* Royalties for radio airplay, TV
* Custom composition for film, TV, games
* Session playing (if that's your thing)
* Teaching
* Merchandise sales
* Advertising revenue (YouTube, etc.)
... and so on.

If you go in with the mindset that you can release an album, do no work to promote it, and not tour, it's unrealistic to think that will pay your bills. But if you're working every day on both building your business and creating new music, and you work HARD, I think it's quite possible to make a living.


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## wst3 (May 3, 2012)

Not sure I believe, completely in ,your analysis Andrew, but I admire your approach, and your willingness to see it through, and I wish you the best of fortunes with your plan!

I guess I worry that managing that many revenue streams could become very time consuming, and ultimately tiring.

But then I am (a) an old fart, and (b) not very good at the whole sales/marketing thing.

I tried a similar approach several years ago, although I covered a broader spectrum of services (audio engineering, teaching, IT support for small business, custom music composition, even some programming and circuit design services.) and what I discovered about myself is that I would land an interesting gig, and focus 100% on that gig, so that when it was finished I'd be out looking for the next gig, which did not work out well at all. I also chased after session work, but that turned out to be really difficult. I understand it has gotten better around here in the ensuing years.

I think by narrowing your focus to all music related tasks you increase your chances for success.


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## Andrew Aversa (May 3, 2012)

I agree with you that it can be exhausting (I've felt that myself at times), and not everything you do will produce a good result. The book "The 4-Hour Workweek" has some great insights about time management and entrepreneurship which I think are very applicable to the music industry. For example:

* The 80/20 rule applies to most things. eg. 20% of what you do probably takes up 80% of your time, 20% of your clients/customers pay 80% of your bills, etc. 

* Seek to create scalable goods/services where possible. Teaching private lessons is not scalable. Teaching at a music school, high school, college, university, or even online streaming lessons... all these things are scalable. Likewise, custom composition is not scalable but licensing is. 

* Try to automate and delegate as much as possible. We all end up spending time on things that really anyone can do; perhaps these tasks can be done with autoresponders, scripts, interns, or even virtual assistants.

Here's how I applied some of this to my own life. Keep in mind, this is just my experience, but perhaps it can be valuable to some of you as well.

1. I took a long look at what activities I do in terms of time spent and money earned. I found that things like my now-closed music library ZirconTrax were causing me a lot of stress and using lots of time, but not generating much money. Likewise, I'm an adjunct at Drexel University and while teaching a class is fine, I was also doing an extracurricular group that I found to be very time-consuming. So, I closed ZirconTrax and got some people to help with the extracurricular group.

Continuing along those lines, I found that licensing had dropped to a less significant portion of my income, whereas my sample library company (Impact Soundworks) was growing fast. So I decided to focus more time into that, and simply creating original music. Likewise, I'm now a lot more aware of the time commitment associated with any given gig - I get a lot of requests for relatively small stuff, and I'm now much less inclined to take them unless I'm compensated well. Say you're offered $100 for something that will take you 2 hours (eg. a simple stinger for a podcast, mixing/mastering job, whatever). Keep in mind there is an attention cost to switching activities - you might be losing more time than 2 hours to switch in and out of that 'mode'.

2. Since I don't tour or have a constant stream of new music to sell, and I don't have a lot of time to self-promote, I wanted to try and 'automate' this. I've been uploading music and simple videos to YouTube for about a year and a half now, and posting on Facebook to engage with my fans regularly. These activities take up not very much time at all, but they serve to continuously promote my music well after my initial short time investment has expired. 

3. I realized that with ISW, I was spending a lot of time on certain editing activities that was slowing me down. I was the bottleneck. Now, I'm working with more editors + other sample library designers. I'm still doing quite a bit of work on everything we do, but with some of the work delegated, we can do multiple projects simultaneously.

4. On a similar note, about a year ago I thought about how I spend a good amount of time answering email for ISW. Most of it is basic tech support stuff. So, I wrote an internal tech support 'FAQ', gave it to a friend of mine who was looking for some very part-time work, and he's now doing about 90% of our customer service - and doing a great job, I might add. Everyone wins.

5. I'm still working on this, but I found that I was frequently distracted by internet stuff + games when working at home (which is basically all the time). So, I got a second computer JUST for games and deleted Steam from my main computer. This simple change to my environment has really helped - there's more I can (and will) do here though.


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## MacQ (May 20, 2012)

Great post, Andrew.

For my own sample development, I actually hired a programmer to build me some custom tools to expedite my workflow. I can now churn stuff out much faster, without having to hire any editors.

I guess the point there is to remind everyone that workflow is king, and that spending a couple grand to outsource some custom tools that are fit to your specification and make YOUR workflow faster is a far better use of money in the long run than any shiny new sample library. In my opinion. That said, sometimes nothing beats a shiny new sample library. 

~Stu


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## joaoluismusic (May 30, 2012)

I'm not disagreeing with the article. However, I think we shouldn't read this and continue complaining about it (not saying you are, I haven't read all the replies). That would be a waste of time for actual thinking. We should read it and use it as a tool to better think about our future investments.

The problem of illegal downloads doesn't just stop on the grand companies, it's a whole web of situations. People download illegally because they're either not educated about it which leads to other issues or because they don't have money which leads to other issues... which makes companies answer with different tactics etc etc... this is not the situation literally, of course, but I think you get the main picture I'm trying to portrait here.

My only recommendation here for people who still haven't invested is to only invest from your own pocket on your first project. Even so, try to make it as smart as you can to not spend that much money. Then have all your expenses written down and take the money you get from that to pay whoever you need to pay (in case you had to ask for some up front), then use the next part to invest on your future project and then on upgrading your material and only AFTER all that, can you use money for yourself and repeat the process over and over again until you find someone who can sponsor you (you also have to invest in smart publicity) It's easy to start to fall on the temptation of using the money from that investment to pay your bills. However, if you fall on that, you'll never have the money for your second project and you never know if anyone will come and help at all. So, think for yourself, dream about your project but keep your expectations real. It might go well, it might go bad. Don't EVER get into debts. If you do, make sure they are an amount that you can easily pay off.
This also includes reading a few books about publicity and negotiations... you don't need to go to the technical books about it, there are some good books around... Just to give you a grasp of the field. I'm no expert on it, you only become one through a lot of experience.

I know a lot of you are experts here and I'm just a newbie, so if you have something to add, please do so as I love learning (especially with my mistakes).


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## midphase (May 30, 2012)

zircon_st @ Thu May 03 said:


> You just have to look at it as a business:



* Album sales -- This is the most "musical" option.

* Licensing (direct and via libraries/publishers) -- By simply giving the tracks to a music library to license, you devalue the product greatly. Finding a music library that will give you up-fronts for tracks which are not custom created for TV is tough. If you try to license directly it involves a lot of non-music work, and you have to manage and monitor usage and billing to make sure everyone is using your tracks legally.

* Royalties for radio airplay, TV -- You have no control over whether your music gets played or licensed. You can certainly try to send it out to program directors and music editors.

* Custom composition for film, TV, games -- This is a specialty skill, you can't expect just about any songwriter to pick up Logic Pro and start scoring films. Plus getting a foot in the door in the film, TV and especially gaming industry can take many years and even then still be unprofitable.

* Session playing (if that's your thing) -- Depends on your playing skills and versatility. Also, unless you're an amazing player, or you play something unusual (Diego Stocco), session players are a hurting bunch right about now.

* Teaching -- Not really music related.

* Merchandise sales -- Depends heavily on how many people are interested in buying your t-shirts or bumper stickers online. This requires a great deal of fanboy power. Hard to implement without touring heavily.

* Advertising revenue (YouTube, etc.) -- This requires literally millions of views (almost impossible to have any control over those numbers) to be any meaningful amount. As the article states, YT is not exactly paying the big bucks. It also requires that you have more than just a "song" with a title card, YT is a visual medium and your proficiency at creating a compelling video has everything to do with how interested people will be in watching your song.


I'm not trying to poop on what you said (although I do find a lot of it to be over simplistic reasoning), but what I am saying is that most of what you outline has very little to do with writing or performing music, and an awful lot to do with office/clerical work. One has to ask himself, what's the point of being a musician if it ends up being 90% work that you don't enjoy, and maybe a tiny bit of the work that you do enjoy? Why not look into a completely different line of work? What is the compelling reason to create if the way the game is now set up, there is little value in the work that is created?

That's of course is a shame, and in the coming years I believe society will suffer greatly for such shortsightedness when it comes to the way it supports the arts. Unfortunately it is the realistic end to the way things are going. I am fortunate that after being in this business for 20 years I have accumulated enough of a network of clients, and have enough royalty stream that allows me to continue doing what I love to do with more of a 50/50 split between the clerical/business part of the work and the creative. If I was just starting out (or contemplating getting into music), knowing what I know now, I would stay as far away from it as possible. Once again, this is a big shame, because we will never know the next creative musical genius since he will probably have opted for a more "sensible" career into finance or programming.


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## joaoluismusic (May 30, 2012)

oh, I just remembered one of the things the article talked about which was the question of why doesn't Apple lower their rate on itunes. I remembered I had a conversation with a friend about it and argument I used was that I supposed (no hard data, just a guess) that they use that money to keep other products at lower cost? Everytime there's a new apple product, the new one takes the price of the old one and the old one drops 100 dollars. Then you have the iphone 3G which is free. I guess it's a way to keep making a lot of money without loosing any and still giving people a better access to their technology?


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## midphase (May 30, 2012)

iPhone is not free...it's actually one of Apple's most expensive products if you factor in the 2 year service agreement that you need to lock yourself into. Most of their other products have held steady price-wise, only dropping when the technology is truly out of step with the price or the competition is too fierce.


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## joaoluismusic (May 31, 2012)

iPhone 3 is free, you only have the contract with the phone company. anyway, I'm not defending apple, I'm just trying to give a different insights to what may be the reason. Most companies raise their prices. I don't think the answer is black and white, I think there's a grey area that needs to be researched more before making statements about who is good or bad.


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## noiseboyuk (May 31, 2012)

FYI - UK digital revenue overtakes physical for the first time, overall revenue for the industry in the UK up by 2.7%. In the current economic climate, pretty amazing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18278037


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## Daryl (May 31, 2012)

noiseboyuk @ Thu May 31 said:


> FYI - UK digital revenue overtakes physical for the first time, overall revenue for the industry in the UK up by 2.7%. In the current economic climate, pretty amazing.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18278037


That doesn't surprise me at all. I was talking to the powers that be at KPM the other day, and was told that for each new album release, they only burn about 200 CDs.

D


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## joaoluismusic (May 31, 2012)

Really cool information! What companies are contributing for that?


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