What did you produce in the Lockdown years?

  • Thread starter Thread starter rob aylestone
  • Start date Start date
rob aylestone

rob aylestone

Moderator
I found this old video lurking - in the Covid days, nothing much to do so I recorded this old George Michael track - if you listen to it, at the end I found the George Michael isolated vocal and slapped it over the top. There are a few sync issues, but it's not too bad I think.
 
I wrote, recorded and published five new songs a month for over a year (I had a lot of time on my hands, and it was good to be away from my day job), and then I decided to slow down and do about a song a month for a while. Unlike yourself, I abandoned production standards in favor of sheer songwriting production. Lots of mistakes and rough edges, but that was in tune with the time, I felt. I still like most of the songs.
 
If you have them still, stick them up - It's great to hear what others do.
 
I didn't stop doing choir stuff either - how about this covid Vivaldi - with a string quartet and organ. Everything shot by themselves on their phones at home.
 
dobro said:
I wrote, recorded and published five new songs a month for over a year
Click to expand...
When you say "published", what does that entail? How do amateur songwriters like me protect the copyright of songs? Thanks.
 
Well - nowadays, the publishing bit means finding an aggregator or distributor - like distrokid, sontradr, ditto or dozens of others. You give them the music and it appears on all the platforms. Takes about three weeks then anyone in the world can stream or buy it.
Copyright is yours from the day you create it. The reality is that you need to make sure that when people shazzam your song, you come up as the author/singer/arranger or whatever. If you wish, you can join your countries rights organisation. PRS in my case, ASCAP in the US and they too will protect and enhance your product - they catch things like radio play, or live performances of it.

At the very least, if you do this, and somebody sticks it on youtube, YOU get any royalties because the system knows what it is and who it belongs to. You won't get rich, but the song will be yours, officially.
 
rob aylestone said:
Well - nowadays, the publishing bit means finding an aggregator or distributor - like distrokid, sontradr, ditto or dozens of others. You give them the music and it appears on all the platforms. Takes about three weeks then anyone in the world can stream or buy it.
Click to expand...
Interesting, thank you for that.

I see the £20 annual fee from Distrokid which seems very reasonable for what you get - unlimited uploads, songs placed on all the major platforms, etc. PRS as an additional safeguard.

I remember reading in the 90s of the manual process of song copyright protection, a cumbersome unweildy process, of recording your song onto cassette, and posting it to yourself, and then keeping the unopened, postmarked envelope as proof of your creation at least at that date! Would posting a song here or on the Songwriter forum have a similar modern day effect?

With the fee mentioned above, as small as that seems, my suspicious mind goes immediately to the third party sites that show up when you search for how to get a passport, or EHIC card, where they charge you a fee on top of the standard cost (free for the card). Are they charging for something that could be free, or is that the fair cost of admin for uploading to multiple music sites?
 
We did Take The Wheel during COVID lockdown. Our first efforts at recording. Some of it is pretty rough but we learned a lot. Released through CDBaby

 
Recorded during the days of wearing a mask but not released until last year with a bunch of other covers.
 
The sending to yourself, and not opening it was just an evidential system to prove your version existed before somebody elses. Nowadays, with platforms like youtube spotting copyright problems in seconds, it's vital to do it properly, so your music is tagged in the international system. It works pretty well.

There are potential issues of course. Distrokid are I think the market leaders. They are also well known for being judge and jury. They are very hot on artificial plugging of your music. You can pay to have your music promoted - easy with computers, they just hit your track from all corners in the world. If you do this, you risk an entire takedown, and there is nothing you can do. Distrokid are well known for just doing it. My backstory is where one of my tracks, that had notched up a few thousand streams suddenly went crazy on Tik Tok - millions of streams via tik tok - and Distrokid whacked me hard - not only no payments, but they froze my account removed the money and banned me. No recourse at all. I was doing great with them until that point. Now songtradr is my preferred platform, but I spread a few with others just to be safe now I earn a bit. I doubt this would happen to you and is a rare thing, but don't ever attempt to inflate your figures. Now, they warn you every new release - they make you tick a box saying artificial inflation will result is bad things. Just be aware.
 
I recorded this in my home studio during lockdown around four years ago. I was very fortunate to have my drummer friend available to help out. (He lives nearby).

 
Wow. Lots really. My best frind and I and a bass player we hooked up with got together every Saturday to record. My fried just passed
 
Nice! The tone of your sax is smoooooth. Great job! This is one of the funnest songs I've ever played on bass (but I'm not much of a bass player). Anyway... I produced a dozen or so songs during Covid. The one below is my cover of Bill Wither's Lean On Me - a song I've always loved.



I also joined a virtual band with another guy, Mark Tiarra, and recorded another dozen songs. The one below is called "Who Do You Think You Are?" I'm on drums, vocals, and production. Mark is on guitar and bass.

 
K

Thread 'Sweet Marguerita'



Just finished the remix/remaster of this blues rock shuffle piece (think "Little Feat") and I have a very specific question: Is the mastering "too hot"? Do you "hear" the glass ceiling?

Of course, ANY comments about anything are warmly appreciated - but the mastering levels are a little more pressed than I normally push because that's where the "glue" seemed to lock the song - but I wanted to make sure ear fatigue hadn't set in and I'm overly desensitized to the loud.

Thanks all!!
  • Like


:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top