How to monetize live recordings and new songs?

Anticleon

Member
I have this friend who has a 3 piece band of really talented guys(or he says so), and he can record some new music with them. Also he can record their live performances too. What is a good way to make a few bucks from something like that, other than Youtube? Is there some kind of "market" for that kind of thing? He lives in Canada, and he currently gets a few invites to record musical performances, not big events but small scale ones like promotions etc. He uses a DJI action camera and a DSLR only.
The idea is to showcase his recordings on a website of his own, but we are still not clear as to how to make some money, at least to raise funds to buy some new equipment.
Thank you.
 
Making money selling recordings is a thing of the past for the most part. Playing live has more potential for income. About the only option for income with recordings is getting them in TV shows, movies or ads.
 
DIY download cards.

If you can get it uploaded quickly, the easiest way would be to print up links on cardstock to a dropbox or google folder, sell them for a few bucks, and advertise that it will be up in 12 hours or something.
 
He can do live performance videos though a site such as Patreon, where people pay a monthly fee for access to live and recorded videos.
 
You're entering an incredibly competitive arena where really talented people are a dime a thousand. Like everyone else you (they) need to market yourself so people are aware of your existence. Youtube and elsewhere are obvious places to take advantage of. You also need to connect positively with your audience and not come across as lame, confrontational.

You also need to have a product that's worth selling - somewhere in the mix needs to be someone who knows how to produce professional-quality recordings and professional-looking video if that's part of the product. These days the gear to do so is more affordable than ever but someone still needs to know how to do it.

If you're going to be in the public eye you're going to encounter the assclowns of the world - the sick-in-the-head Ritalin-case idiots whose response to you announcing you cured cancer will be "SUCK IT AND DIE!! HAHAHAHA" - don't get bogged down engaging them.

If you do actually manage to move some product there's also dealing with the money, who gets paid what, not getting into problems with the IRS etc.
 
Thanks guys for insight. Actually he intends to give them free until he gets a secure foothold in the trade. But it should lead to monetization later on when he gets a sufficient fan base.
I was suggesting that he may even start recording other people's events, small scale ones, for free so that he could make an income until the music production gets noticed by people.
I am still not very clear how this could be done, I mean monetizing music but I guess that creating a website, subscriptions to Patreon and similar sites as mike birch said, and social media would be the ways to go.
 
Making money selling recordings is a thing of the past for the most part. Playing live has more potential for income.
yep .... I see a lot of angst about the decline of recordings but the truth is, the vast majority of musicians always made their money from live work.
yes, there were people who made millions off recordings but they were always a small percentage of musicians.
And in the last 20 years or so there were ways for musicians to monetize their home done recordings but that was really a blip on the screen.
prior to that few players made a lot on recordings and now that has gone away.
Back in the late 70's I had some friends who were a national act .... did lots of LPs and had a No# 1 .... when their run ended, they actually owed money to the record company.

I'm fine with live being how we make money.
 
Thanks guys for insight. Actually he intends to give them free until he gets a secure foothold in the trade. But it should lead to monetization later on when he gets a sufficient fan base.
I was suggesting that he may even start recording other people's events, small scale ones, for free so that he could make an income until the music production gets noticed by people.
I am still not very clear how this could be done, I mean monetizing music but I guess that creating a website, subscriptions to Patreon and similar sites as mike birch said, and social media would be the ways to go.
If you record things for free, you're not making any money.

You need really good video skills to have a product that makes enough impact for people to be willing to pay for it. And, depending on what the video content is, the audio quality may need to be better than any built-in camera mic can provide. But, really, you are battling a world where everyone can make a video with their phone, and post it instantly, and the attention span of the viewers is measured in seconds before they are off to the next thing, unless it is especially unique and captivating. Oh, and small/new bands never have money to pay for this stuff, unless one of the members has a rich relative to bankroll promotional stuff. (All this IMO, of course.)

So, if your friend wants to make money, the first thing to do is figure out how other people are making money doing what he's thinking about, and how much money they make per gig, how many gigs they can get at any price point, and how that turns into be a positive/net income stream. What kind of gigs pay well (hint, weddings) vs equipment and time requirements to make the whole thing viable, what other types of services can be offered that might be outside the original concept but maybe take less work or investment and keep some money coming in while waiting for that viral YT event (audio transcriptions? recording business presentations, e.g. for reuse in training? Etc.) I.e., a business plan that has some researched end point that describes what the profitable business will look like, and how he gets there. It's all going to depend on the market and the person's abilities and initiative.

It's one thing if you want to have a hobby and give stuff away, but people tend to value something based on what they pay for it.
 
Making money selling recordings is a thing of the past

Let's just say it's harder to get on the radar in 2020 where you can make money from recordings. The industry is so saturated with so many genre's and angles to play those genre's... Anybody with a half a brain, a laptop and a smart phone or two can make stellar recordings beyond the wildest dreams of someone trying to make a recording yet alone a video in 1980..Things have changed and things remain the same... When I read Boulders comment Finneas O'Connel came to mind came to mind...Who the F is Finneas O'Connel you ask? Well he's a 21 year old record producer who produced some songs in his bedroom in Highland Park, LA ( East LA ) 6 of which ended up as Grammy nominations this year. I think he and his sister Billie Eilish are kind of set for life after this run they had this year...soooo moral of the story is making HUGE money in the industry is still very possible just 1000 times harder than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago.

From THIS ARTICLE
Eilish (full name: Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell) racked up one billion on-demand streams before releasing her debut full-length, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?—Nielsen Music reported that she had passed 3.79 billion streams by April 25—and has seen 12 of the 14 album tracks, plus two other songs, hit Billboard’s Hot 100. Not bad for a 17-year-old who, incidentally, is now the youngest female ever to have a Number-One album in the UK.

BTW that link above is a great Article on the whole deal of recording in his bedroom with a Imac, logic pro and an Apollo 8 interface...basically he sucks!
 
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There are a few cases of folks making a living using a combination of YouTube and other services. One very successful group would be Pomplamoose. This is a duo who were firmly in the "home recording" camp. They started producing cover videos with some creative, quirky, sometimes campy videos. The trick is that they are really talented. Over the past years, they have gotten almost 900,000 subscribers, MANY millions of views, and have moved from recording in their apartment to a real studio and doing originals as well as covers.

They use Patreon as well as Youtube to get paid for their work.

Granted they are just one of thousands of folks who post videos, but it shows that if you have talent and creativity, and keep at it, you CAN make money. Its no different from the hundreds of bands who had one hit record in the past, versus the few bands that became the Beatles, Cream, ZZ Top, etc.
 
Can someone please tell me how much HFA would charge (their service fee, not the royalty for the items) for a mechanical licence to create covers? And is the mechanical licence valid/required only in the USA?
I've been studying about this after your suggestions here, and now I think I am getting somewhere.
 
Your own recordings will generate some income, but licences for covers when you use the normal online distribution means you have to sell LOTS to make them pay. I think one song costs me $60 a year to have it licence and out there. With streams returning half a cent or so per play, that's a lot before the - turns to +. Unless you shift serious numbers, covers are just for exposure, not profit. Youtube, for instance gives you nothing for covers - their ID system records your cover as the original! They get any ad money. If your version is sufficiently different, you get it - but that's not usually the case.
 
Your own recordings will generate some income, but licences for covers when you use the normal online distribution means you have to sell LOTS to make them pay. I think one song costs me $60 a year to have it licence and out there. With streams returning half a cent or so per play, that's a lot before the - turns to +. Unless you shift serious numbers, covers are just for exposure, not profit. Youtube, for instance gives you nothing for covers - their ID system records your cover as the original! They get any ad money. If your version is sufficiently different, you get it - but that's not usually the case.

There may be an even better deal out there but so far I am very satisfied with Distrokid and the services they offer... Distrokid makes it pretty dang painless and simple.... $19.95 a year to upload as many recordings of songs you own the rights to and $12 per cover per year of which they get you the mechanical rights slam dunk and the owners of the cover get their legally entitles share of each stream
Here is a link explaining how covers work on Distrokid
 
Can someone please tell me how much HFA would charge (their service fee, not the royalty for the items) for a mechanical licence to create covers? And is the mechanical licence valid/required only in the USA?
I've been studying about this after your suggestions here, and now I think I am getting somewhere.
The service fee depends on the company that does the paperwork, e.g., HFA, Affordable Song Licensing, Easy Song Licensing might charge a flat $15 or $12 or whatever they want for the legwork part of establishing who has the copyright. Then the next part will depend on how you plan to distribute the cover and how many copies - digital downloads, streaming, CD, etc.

As [MENTION=178786]rob aylestone[/MENTION] points out, it takes a lot of copies of any type to break even. I’d say anyone hoping for any kind of scale uses something like CD Baby, Distrokid, et al, to get to the large platforms, as well as handle PRO stuff outside the US. It’s incredibly complex.
 
There may be an even better deal out there but so far I am very satisfied with Distrokid and the services they offer... Distrokid makes it pretty dang painless and simple.... $19.95 a year to upload as many recordings of songs you own the rights to and $12 per cover per year of which they get you the mechanical rights slam dunk and the owners of the cover get their legally entitles share of each stream
Here is a link explaining how covers work on Distrokid

I am with you on DistroKid. ~$20 bucks and they push it out there.

One thing to note to the original poster, you have to work it pretty hard. I would also suggest figuring out a way to do videos. I don't do anything and my results reflect that. I get a few random plays, but without some kind of marketting push, you will most likely not get many plays=not much money.

But DistroKid seems like a fully legitimate distribution site and seems to want to help artists.
 
Back in the late 70's I had some friends who were a national act .... did lots of LPs and had a No# 1 .... when their run ended, they actually owed money to the record company.

Absolutely true!!

I know a band that got a "recording contract" (basically a big loan) from Arista Records. The label didn't push very hard on the radio payola, and they only promoted the band in smaller radio markets. Lacking decent promotion, the band was basically forced to keep on touring to make money from their live shows in order to meet their obligation of the contract and repay all the money to break even with the label. They toured for non-stop for a couple years before calling it quits and they all went back to regular day jobs.

Anybody remember these guys?...

YouTube
 
Absolutely true!!

I know a band that got a "recording contract" (basically a big loan) from Arista Records. The label didn't push very hard on the radio payola, and they only promoted the band in smaller radio markets. Lacking decent promotion, the band was basically forced to keep on touring to make money from their live shows in order to meet their obligation of the contract and repay all the money to break even with the label. They toured for non-stop for a couple years before calling it quits and they all went back to regular day jobs.

Anybody remember these guys?...
The guy I'm talking about here has a day job as a Quantity Surveyor in Canada but he wants to make a move in the recording industry too. That's why he is able to work for free for a while. But as someone said there's no value or recognition in free giveaways either. :D At least he can do the video recording work part time.
 
For some reason, my music gets streamed and downloaded in the US mainly - odd as I'm a Brit. I'm wondering what to do with the money - October's rolled in at $6.50. Most streams get paid at between a quarter and half a cent, on my original recordings. My covers have yet to pay me anything at all - but there's always hope.
 
For some reason, my music gets streamed and downloaded in the US mainly - odd as I'm a Brit. I'm wondering what to do with the money - October's rolled in at $6.50. Most streams get paid at between a quarter and half a cent, on my original recordings. My covers have yet to pay me anything at all - but there's always hope.

Well I have a done a lot of covers since I actually started pressing record @ 6 years ago after 40+ years of not really being able to push the button :D...I have been in first position on soundclick in Covers on 3 of them and about 9 of the 19 in the top 10 ...that and a starbucks gift certificate will get me a cup of coffee ...On the originals I've only uploaded to originals into the money making streaming world and neither are really all that excellent of recordings...maybe that's why I'm still under a dollar in revenue after 16 months... In self examination doing covers is less vulnerable because someone else wrote the tune I just monkey it around to my styling and "some" people dig what I do. To post covers in distrokid I have to pay $12 for each song and it can have no mention of the band or artist I'm covering...so...so far I haven't posted any covers in the mega money streaming market. I plan on recording a boatload of originals this year and putting them out there...maybe I can catch up with you Rob and we can go buy a burger and fries with our spoils :guitar:
 
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