ido1957
9K Gold Member
Read over the website and it looks like an expensive way to get feedback on your songs. I can do that here for free! Any members here? Any opinions?
M
mikeh
New member
I worked with a songwriter who was a member of Taxi. The song feedback he got was very good, but as you indicate, very costly - if that is the only use of Taxi.
However, Taxi forwarded a song that we co-wrote to a publisher (we would have never been able to access the publisher on our own). The publisher placed the song in a movie. Since then, the publisher has placed songs in 3 other movies and in the Television show "My Name Is Earl".
We've made a couple of thousand bucks in publishing (and the publisher gets his 50%) and BMI has collected a few hundred bucks in broadcast fees. This more than paid for the Taxi membership. More importantly, we now have an in with a legit and successful publisher (something that is very hard to achieve).
Now, Taxi may not be right for everyone - and from what I see, they are looking for very "formula" driven material - before they will forward something (ie: commercial 3 minute - verse/verse/chorus, great vocals, etc) which many people choose not to write. However, I can't complain - I've made money through Taxi and at least one of the songs will almost assuredly continue to generate a few hundred bucks a year - probably for several years to come. Maybe we could have found a publisher without Taxi - but maybe our songs would be sitting on a shelf in the basement without Taxi.
However, Taxi forwarded a song that we co-wrote to a publisher (we would have never been able to access the publisher on our own). The publisher placed the song in a movie. Since then, the publisher has placed songs in 3 other movies and in the Television show "My Name Is Earl".
We've made a couple of thousand bucks in publishing (and the publisher gets his 50%) and BMI has collected a few hundred bucks in broadcast fees. This more than paid for the Taxi membership. More importantly, we now have an in with a legit and successful publisher (something that is very hard to achieve).
Now, Taxi may not be right for everyone - and from what I see, they are looking for very "formula" driven material - before they will forward something (ie: commercial 3 minute - verse/verse/chorus, great vocals, etc) which many people choose not to write. However, I can't complain - I've made money through Taxi and at least one of the songs will almost assuredly continue to generate a few hundred bucks a year - probably for several years to come. Maybe we could have found a publisher without Taxi - but maybe our songs would be sitting on a shelf in the basement without Taxi.
ido1957
9K Gold Member
mikeh - sounds very interesting...
Was your successful submission a professional studio version or a home recording?
Does Taxi expect super high quality recordings that can be used "as is" on TV, Movies, etc. or do they get a pro band to re-record them. I guess an artist would re-record the song (of course).
I'm just wondering if the sound quality of my recordings would even be worth submitting....
Was your successful submission a professional studio version or a home recording?
Does Taxi expect super high quality recordings that can be used "as is" on TV, Movies, etc. or do they get a pro band to re-record them. I guess an artist would re-record the song (of course).
I'm just wondering if the sound quality of my recordings would even be worth submitting....
jdier
New member
mikeh said:
Mike, can you post a link to some of the music that you have sold/published? I would be really interested in hearing the type of stuff that could work at TAXI.
M
mikeh
New member
Ido1957
The first song that Taxi forwarded to a publisher was produced using Band-In-A-Box (BIAB) software using MIDI to trigger a couple of keyboards (I don't remember which ones, but I think the piano was a Kurzwiel and the bass and strings were from a D-50. All the pre-production was done in my small studio. We tranferred the MIDI from BIAB to Cakewalk (if I recall, Sonar had not yet come out), I worked out an arrangement, and wrote a bridge to pull the song together
We took the MIDI and a couple of keyboards to local "mid level" studio (I think it was about $40 per hour) and laid electic guitar and vocals on top (at the time I did not have decent mics or a decent room for vocals - and in honesty, I did not have the engineering chops). The studio is a modust facility in a guys basement, but is a well equipped, Pro Tools based facility and the owner is a very good engineer - so the final product was very well mixed - the recording was not "professionally mastered" - but the quality of the recorded sound can compete at a very high level.
The important thing was - we paid for a very good singer (I think it was $150 for a session that lasted maybe 90 minutes and we paid for a very good engineer. Naturally, we felt the song was strong enough to spend sopme money.
Naturally - after Taxi connected us with the publisher all the material goes directly to him - but he is very demanding of the quality. We do all the recording at my place, but since the outside studio was part of our success on that first song (actually we submitted several songs to Taxi before we got lucky) we bring all the material to an outside studio for mixing and he now does basic mastering with Waves
To clerify, Taxi does not require any specific level of quality - however, the publisher that Taxi forwarded the material to (who places a large part of his focus on source material for film and television) does demand "radio ready mastered material". He has no desire to put any time or cost into re-recording anything.
Although Taxi does not require a specific "mastered quality" - the fact is, if you want to compete as a commerical songwriter - you are going up against great, well performed and well recorded songs - from people willing to spend the money to make thier material sound as good as it possibly can. Sending anything that does not meet that level of quality to Taxi will significantly reduce any chance that it will be passed through.
Taxi at it's best, acts as a clearing house. They review submittals and if they find the "right material" they will try to pass it through. Thier success depends on meeting the expectations of the publishers, producers, lables they have access to . I must anticipate Taxi will not compromise it's reputation and will not pass through any material that it does not think will meet the demand of the people they work with. If I were a publisher and Taxi sent me material that did not meet my expectations - I would quickly refuse to accept any more material - I'm sure you get the point.
jdier
Candidly, I'm a dinosaur who does not utilize the computer nearly as much as I should - and I have no material in any format I can link to. I'm a musican more than a technician and candidly, I use the computer mostly as a glorified multi-track MIDI recorder. I still mix 2 track to DAT and use all external processing, etc. - In part that's why we continue to use another studio.
I recently upgraded my system and will be learning how to actually use all the tools a computer can provide - but at this point I can't even provide a link. I think my songwriting partner may have some of the material in a format that can be linked (or perhaps the studio does). I'll check and see - but naturally I don't want to have to pay the studio to set up a link.
Bottom line guys - if you are serious about sending material out to professionals - make sure you have the chops to provide master quality, or be prepared to pay someone else - if you don't it is unlikely you will stand out.
The first song that Taxi forwarded to a publisher was produced using Band-In-A-Box (BIAB) software using MIDI to trigger a couple of keyboards (I don't remember which ones, but I think the piano was a Kurzwiel and the bass and strings were from a D-50. All the pre-production was done in my small studio. We tranferred the MIDI from BIAB to Cakewalk (if I recall, Sonar had not yet come out), I worked out an arrangement, and wrote a bridge to pull the song together
We took the MIDI and a couple of keyboards to local "mid level" studio (I think it was about $40 per hour) and laid electic guitar and vocals on top (at the time I did not have decent mics or a decent room for vocals - and in honesty, I did not have the engineering chops). The studio is a modust facility in a guys basement, but is a well equipped, Pro Tools based facility and the owner is a very good engineer - so the final product was very well mixed - the recording was not "professionally mastered" - but the quality of the recorded sound can compete at a very high level.
The important thing was - we paid for a very good singer (I think it was $150 for a session that lasted maybe 90 minutes and we paid for a very good engineer. Naturally, we felt the song was strong enough to spend sopme money.
Naturally - after Taxi connected us with the publisher all the material goes directly to him - but he is very demanding of the quality. We do all the recording at my place, but since the outside studio was part of our success on that first song (actually we submitted several songs to Taxi before we got lucky) we bring all the material to an outside studio for mixing and he now does basic mastering with Waves
To clerify, Taxi does not require any specific level of quality - however, the publisher that Taxi forwarded the material to (who places a large part of his focus on source material for film and television) does demand "radio ready mastered material". He has no desire to put any time or cost into re-recording anything.
Although Taxi does not require a specific "mastered quality" - the fact is, if you want to compete as a commerical songwriter - you are going up against great, well performed and well recorded songs - from people willing to spend the money to make thier material sound as good as it possibly can. Sending anything that does not meet that level of quality to Taxi will significantly reduce any chance that it will be passed through.
Taxi at it's best, acts as a clearing house. They review submittals and if they find the "right material" they will try to pass it through. Thier success depends on meeting the expectations of the publishers, producers, lables they have access to . I must anticipate Taxi will not compromise it's reputation and will not pass through any material that it does not think will meet the demand of the people they work with. If I were a publisher and Taxi sent me material that did not meet my expectations - I would quickly refuse to accept any more material - I'm sure you get the point.
jdier
Candidly, I'm a dinosaur who does not utilize the computer nearly as much as I should - and I have no material in any format I can link to. I'm a musican more than a technician and candidly, I use the computer mostly as a glorified multi-track MIDI recorder. I still mix 2 track to DAT and use all external processing, etc. - In part that's why we continue to use another studio.
I recently upgraded my system and will be learning how to actually use all the tools a computer can provide - but at this point I can't even provide a link. I think my songwriting partner may have some of the material in a format that can be linked (or perhaps the studio does). I'll check and see - but naturally I don't want to have to pay the studio to set up a link.
Bottom line guys - if you are serious about sending material out to professionals - make sure you have the chops to provide master quality, or be prepared to pay someone else - if you don't it is unlikely you will stand out.
Last edited: