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Artist Advice (Home) - About Signing Artists - Why Pay For Recording? - Recording Other People's Music - When To Use Studio Musicians - Getting Music For Your Lyrics - What's A Producer? - Recording Other People's Music - History of Road Records - About Copyright - Solo Artist Tips - Songwriting 101 - Making Money With Your Music - Solo Artist Virtual Tour - Virtual Tour For Single Demos - Vocal Reduction Services - Getting Started - Studio Inquiry Form - Getting Signed - Information For Christian Artists - Tips For Churches - Tips For Bands - Recording Tips - Common Music Myths - What It Takes To Success - What We Can Do For You

Perform, Perform, Perform.

MOST IMPORTANT NOTE
If you understand one thing on our entire site, understand this: If you have an active schedule of performing ORIGINAL music, you are constantly enlarging your fan base and you have great product to sell: You're There. It's only a matter of time til you get to the next level. You don't need anyone else's help to make it that far. How much can you make just getting to that level? Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. There are no excuses, only YOU have kept yourself from doing that. This takes a long term commitment and an attitude of "no excuses".

Creating Your Fan Base
You want people to want to see you and you want them to know where you're playing. Get a sign-up list going at your concerts. Make it easy to sign up. Give them something for signing up (promote giveaways etc). Most cost effective: Set up an online mailing list and let people know when you're playing.

To develop a fan base YOU HAVE TO PERFORM. If you perform a lot and have a large fan base YOU WILL GET SIGNED WITH A LEGIT RECORD LABEL. How many people do you need to guarantee a signing? A general rule is 20,000 fan base or 20,000 units sold. Of course, many bands get signed with considerably less and sometimes no sales.

Share In The Creativity
Make everyone a part of the creative process. The number one reason band's break up is when everyone gets sick and tired of supporting one person's dream, usually the lead singer. If you're the one hogging the limelight consider this: You have a much better chance of success with everyone's support.

Live Perfomance
You're only as successful as your last show. You need to do a lot of them.

When you're performing live make sure to say "This is a song WE wrote", even if you're the only writer. This may seem trivial, but it's extremely important.

Introducing members - It's a little trite to introduce each player and have them do a solo. That's a throwback from the lounge band days. Introduce each player while the music is playing, not during dead space. This is a Vegas rule that still holds true.

It's always cool to encourage to audience to clap for a player half way through a great solo.

The Big Secret - Each person in the audience should feel like you are performing for them. Don't talk to them like cattle. At one point in the show, break down and tell the audience something personal just for them. Nothing corny, something honest. They will ALWAYS remember that moment when they see you. It could be as simple as, "You guys are the greatest, you're the reason I keep going". Examples of great artists that understand this: Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand and Metallica.

A Word About Demos
Don't record demos, record albums. Even if it's 8 songs and you only spent two days on it, it's an album. Most albums have a minimum of 8 songs, so if you're thinking about recording 6 songs, bump it up to eight if you can. It doesn't take that much more time in the studio, your gear is already set up and the overall mix has already been programmed.

Definition of "demo": This isn't really my best work, I'll do my best work later sometime when I'm ready, which is probably never.

Tips For Musicians Under 20
Here are things you will all learn in time. Learn them now and save yourself some time!

TUNE - Guitar players get a tuner and learn how to use it. When recording ALWAYS tune between every song. The tuner's not enough, make sure you play some chords and fine tune it from there. If you're laughing right now, WE'RE TALKING TO YOU!

EXPRESS YOURSELF - The purpose of recording your band is to capture YOUR BAND. Play the way you play, do the things you do. Keep your emotion in the music within some of the few confines of recording. Our engineers will tell you if you're doing something that's hindering the recording. We have liberal censorhip policies.

ENERGY - Don't blow your steam during set-up. You've probably got a long session ahead of you.

TAKING ADVICE - The engineers and producers are there to help you. Listen to what their telling you. If you don't like a suggestion, be open about that so you can talk it out. Actually, most of the young bands we record are VERY receptive to input and are some of the most polite clients we have! Also ironic: In general the most behaved bands we have in the studio are hard core punk bands!

DRUMMERS - The recording is only as strong as you are. The recording is going to make you very transparent. Stay within your technique. If that new fill you learned doesn't come back in exactly in time, skip it. Your kick and snare has to groove, practice with a metronome to double check your time keeping abilities. Then throw away the metronome and go for that elusive "pocket". RECORDING NOTE: When recording it might be a good idea to go a hair lighter on the cymbal attacks. #1 element that ruins young band recordings: Poor drumming.

Other Bands Mary's Garage Band - Versatile Aggression - Violet Minds - 627 - Broken Melody - Brothers of the Creed - Mudfish - Trinity - Opposite 3 - Radio Active Donuts - The Highriders - Robby Combs Band - Tryklon - Shockmonster - The Film - Butter - Off The Record - Groove DeVille - Hate Mail - Elvis Disciples - Headlock - High Noon - Trailer Trash Monkeys - No Direction - Freddy Fender Band - Simple Andy - Hanika - Adalanta - Hark - Lower Case - Albert Miranda Band - Cenizas - Final Exit
Fade to Blue - In Progress - Mental Disorder - Minus One - The Wallbangers

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