Home Recording Label, idea

  • Thread starter Thread starter FredFredrickson
  • Start date Start date
Theres only 1 difference between Duplication & Replication.
Where you can go take it to make money. Duplication is good if your going out and selling your cds at mom and pop stores, at your nearest fleemarket, at your job, etc. Brick & Mortar companies do not take duplicated cds. Only Redbook quality. You will only need to consider Replication if your A. selling a bunch of CD's and about to put it on catelogs for B&M companies to order and stock your music. B. You are already there.
 
proper mindset

i completely agree, mindset, as usual. if you have the ability to sell hundreds of cds, or even get hundreds in stores with the possibility of the sell, you absolutely should be getting em done proper. my statement about the printer was for the entry level. (for the most part - there are exceptions)

there are 2 things to keep in mind.

1-good common sense (straight up hustling your goods, hard as you can, saving money, eliminating as much bs as possible)

2-public perception (best example of this is in the hip-hop market)

if your market is hip hop, you need to put out the perception you have made it already, mad whip, er uh exotic car, sorry, clothes, etc. in other words you need a pressed, shrink wrapped disc - hell if it have an lcd screen in the jewel case that would be ideal.at the other end of the spectrum is the folk / acoustic alternative market, who would rather get their cd shipped in a 95% post recycled cardboard sleeve and similar mailing pouch, with none of that wasteful polluting shrink wrap.

gotta play to your market.
 
CD-Rs can also have some compatibility issues with CD players. (Though if you're selling few enough disks to be using CD-Rs, you probably know most of your fans on a first-name basis and could probably accomodate them with some MP3s or something.)

One advantage of having a couple artists working together on a CD is that we could afford to do a serious run of disks. If we have 5 artists each contribute 2 or 3 songs to an album, they could each get 200 pressed CDs at the 1000 CD rate.
 
Yeah, my DVD player WILL NOT play CD-R's at all, even those burned with Red Book specs. It will play pressed CD's that were made from a CD-R master though.
 
I havent read the epicness of this thread but I read a few posts at the beginning and the end. I think this is a great idea and if nurtured the right way, and a certain standard of quality of music, i.e. you cant just bang on some boxes for 47 min and call it an album and then expect that just because you did it at home, you should be on the home recording label, but if its done right I think it can work.
If we had a label there may be a way to get a discount from certain places on creating cd's and label inserts. An accounts manager, a general manager, and creative consultant are the jobs that must be filled by people. Then we ask the question, can it be done by 4 or 5 people who do not live anywhere close to each other. Web chat, relying on everyones home studios as the recording spots. Its a risky move but it can be done. I really like the idea and I would love to be an artist on the label if not one of the founders. If anyone is serious about getting serious about this thing, I would love to be in, I am about to recieve my bachelors in economics and am looking for a job after that, what better job than starting the worlds first home recording record label. What a steller idea. onestu3@yahoo.com
 
Because you are on the beginning stages of a company setup, you can expect to find and work out all the kinks. All the comments I think are great for that.

In recent years, "Internet Labels" have been popping up all around. These net labels can run just as efficient as their counterparts.

Being in business myself, as some of us are, we have our lists of wholesalers for merch production so thats a +

Worldwide recording sessions have already been done in the past; Engineers controlling Daws from long distances. I think the hurdle of sound & it's processes is easily covered with a good system installed. Material can be mixed & mastered and sent along. Not that difficult :o

The contracts are already done up for the company as a few of us & myself have already an extensive collection of what we would need.
You have a motive, and now you would need to setup the means to achieve your goals.

Really you would need to setup company structures, the marketing schemes, and your budgets. I'm sure with some effort we can push out a product quickly with all the musicans we have in here. Those who are capable & serious will have the means to put out a quality product.

You can use an online office like teamspace to connect the staff, and use something like ShowBiz (http://www.showbizsoftware.com/category_s/44.htm )to keep track of records easier.
 
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I don't have much business experience, but I can play and record drums, and am dead serious about getting it to be the best it possibly can. How do I sign up as one of the musicians / techs for this venture? :p:D
 
I think it's a phenomenal idea.

I do however have some initial thoughts.

1) This thread will eventually fall apart into a mess of posts. I might recommend taking the discussion to a more private area for those that are seriously interested in the project. Google Wave comes to mind, but likely not everyone has it (though there are options to invite people if you have an account, which I do and would be willing to use). Basically...there's gotta be a great way to filter out the good ideas from the bad and record them for future discussion. This is only based on similar past ventures that I've been involved in.

2)

VomitHatSteve said:
One advantage of having a couple artists working together on a CD is that we could afford to do a serious run of disks. If we have 5 artists each contribute 2 or 3 songs to an album, they could each get 200 pressed CDs at the 1000 CD rate.
Click to expand...

I think this is the most reasonable idea yet concerning HOW to go about utilizing this type of service.

If the site can initially be used to find other people like you (artistically). And then form a group to publish an album, it might be useful. But it won't be unique as there are lots of sites out there that do this type of thing in different ways now.

3)

onestu3 said:
I havent read the epicness of this thread but I read a few posts at the beginning and the end. I think this is a great idea and if nurtured the right way, and a certain standard of quality of music, i.e. you cant just bang on some boxes for 47 min and call it an album and then expect that just because you did it at home, you should be on the home recording label, but if its done right I think it can work.
Click to expand...

^ Good point

If you're going to do a Last.fm type thing then you're not going to want to have any music on there that sounds like ass. People will turn it off sooner than they'll skip to the next song.

Now I know that "music quality" is completely and utterly relative to the listener, so it seems to me that some sort of "by-popular-opinion" mechanism for determining whether or not they should be allowed on the label as an artist. It's harsh...it's heartbreaking...but it's a basic and unavoidable fact when it comes to music...Talent is necessary.

4) I don't think that the focus should necessarily be on MARKETING the artists. That should be taken on by the artists themselves. So using a "Twitter-like" interface (as one of the posters suggested), or blogging or whatever shouldn't be a part of it. If the artist wants to tweet, use Twitter and link to it from your blog which is read because you have a link on the "Home Recording Label" site, which people found because they came across the "Home Recording Music Player" which they found on their buddies myspace page. Just my thoughts about how these things happen...

5) I've been waiting for an opportunity to do something like this for some time. I don't have the web-skills necessary to implement the site. But I do have a lot of project management background, so I can help in that regard. PM me if you think I can be of some help for the project. I will gladly do whatever I can to be involved.
 
Wave could be a good idea. I'm actually already using it for a collab with a friend in NYC. I've got something like 20 invites if people need 'em.
 
Yeah, it works well for this kind of thing. I've written several songs with people using it.
 
Is anything new going on with this project? This thread got bumped to the second page, so we apparently have't been talking about it.
 
VomitHatSteve said:
Is anything new going on with this project? This thread got bumped to the second page, so we apparently have't been talking about it.
Click to expand...

The thread kinda tapered off a bit.

Let's get a list of volunteers who are in, and a list of skills they can contribute and what their ideas (proactive ideas) are.

I'll set up a small forum / wiki or something, and a fan page on facebook so we can get started with organizing our ideas.:drunk:
 
Chat

FredFredrickson said:
The thread kinda tapered off a bit.

Let's get a list of volunteers who are in, and a list of skills they can contribute and what their ideas (proactive ideas) are.

I'll set up a small forum / wiki or something, and a fan page on facebook so we can get started with organizing our ideas.:drunk:
Click to expand...

How about a chat? It may be archaic now, but IRC is still useful for these kinds of things.
 
Gizzmo0815 said:
How about a chat? It may be archaic now, but IRC is still useful for these kinds of things.
Click to expand...

Well I could install a chat- in fact I've got one already installed, but I feel like a forum will be better so we can keep a record of the logs (chat logs don't save) and so we can leverage people coming and going at all times of the day...

For right now I've come up with the name Label SPM (for self-produced musicians)

Here's a forum. Anybody interested in joining up as help or an artist, please visit:
http://rightcoasttalent.com/forum/
 
Nah, not a chat to replace the thread. Just to augment it. A place to go when people want to get together to collaborate or whatever. Just a thought.
 
Related, maybe not.

Years ago I had the idea of setting up an unpublished artist streaming media 'station', where unsigned artists who wish to have their reasonably pro-sounding mixes aired on the internet for free, can get exposure.

I went as far as to build the server, the rotation mechanism, a database to shuffle things around based on a variety of parameters, and it sits in my little data center in the basement behind 20mb, wasting electricity and tape backup space.

I figured out a process for submission of songs, as well as a basic "standard" that the songs must be in - and that standard has nothing to do with artist, genre, content, et all - only the quality of the mechanical recording itself.

Obviously it doesn't do anyone any good if listeners shut it of because one song projects 3:17 worth of loud buzzing from the levels being too high throughout. That's what I'm talking about in regard to "standard".

I think something like this would be fun, and maybe useful for those wishing to get more exposure.

I didn't figure out how to market it, I didn't figure out if the hassle of advertising to offset costs to make it free for listeners and artists alike, or if I would prefer to just "eat it" every month, or what have you.

I'm throwing this idea out there because maybe, just maybe, it might be useful to this overall project, either as a component or whatever.
 
I'm interested in participating, but not as interested in leading if you get my meaning. I imagine that's probably the attitude of several of us here. We're happy to join in and contribute our skills, but we don't really want to organize anything.
I think someone needs to step up and say exactly what needs to be done and ask for volunteers to take each task.
 
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