General Music Chat

Thanks Viking. Horizon is good stuff. I've been using Mogami lately, but I'm almost afraid to take that expensive @ss cable out of my gigbag! 50% is fine by me.

Stay safe out there brother!

Good stuff? its a noise supression cable! #3 best option is active pickups,
#2 is 18v active pickups, #1 is my custom horizon cable. Ive HONESTLY had it for 4 years, been on stage every show and for practice, 0 FEEDBACK even with all my effects. Hahaha not to push cables here, but I strongly recommend Horizon over monsters anyday.

JW pretty much nailed it.

There ARE some sponsorships that are better than others, for instance, some, as JW described will only give you a marginal discount, yet will also make outlandish demands such as you cannot post photo or videos of yourself using any competing products, etc..

That's especially true in drum heads/sticks , guitar picks, guitars themselves, etc. And more often than not, a thrifty shopper can find a better price without the endorsements.

But the other side of that coin is for instance, the beer sponsorship we're trying to get... it's a good one (1st tier) vs. something like budweiser, (3rd or 4th tier) I talked with them about sponsorship and they pretty much will sponsor anyone, and what that means is you (the band) MAY use their logo on a banner YOU create using YOUR own money. You get to offer bud specials (pre-arrange between the bar and their sales office) but outside of that, they might ocasionally give you a very small amount of key-chains or other worthless trinkets to hand out at shows...

You would do better to buy your own trinkets and market yourself, if you ultimately are paying for it anyways.

JW pretty much nailed it.

There ARE some sponsorships that are better than others, for instance, some, as JW described will only give you a marginal discount, yet will also make outlandish demands such as you cannot post photo or videos of yourself using any competing products, etc..

You would do better to buy your own trinkets and market yourself, if you ultimately are paying for it anyways.

Thanks for the advise Kramer. I'm wanting to leverage an endorsement for the purpose of marketing myself better than I am able to do right now, on my own. If I can't have a photo taken with another brand of bass, for example, that's ok with me. I can use the one brand of bass when I play live, and have photos taken in the studio with the endorsed brand regardless what bass I actually play on the recording. Also, I'm not as concerned about a discount on product/free product (for now anyway) because I am going to seek endorsements from the companies that I already own product from.

If I'm not able to obtain an endorsement with these companies, I may consider hanging it up temporarily because better deals can be found outside of tiered discounts. For example, the Ibanez ATK700 that I play was bought brand new from Musicians Friend on clearance for $299. This bass listed new from Ibanez for $980, and sold for $749 through Musicians Friend before it went on clearance. I can sniff out deals, but a deal isn't necessarily what I'm after.

What I'm after is the instant perceived credibility and marketability that comes with being an official artist with a brand. For purposes of my advertising, I want the rights and ability to use the line, "Officially Endorsed Artist of ___ Basses," for example, for the credibility that would be perceived by my future clientele, as well as other studios that I'll be networking with in the future. The completion of my website is driving me a little bit of new business, which I had anticipated a small increase. The new website in addition to a sponsorship is a combo that I believe will help me gain new studio clients.

My business is having steady growth now without the endorsement, but it is slower growth than I would like. The endorsement that I want is a strategic move to leverage resources that are currently unavailable to me to produce growth in my business.