General Music Chat

Your thoughts about Mega bundling services (with your manufactured CDs)

http://www.youtube.com/user/discmakersmusic

Unfortunately neither matter much. Discmakers and Guitar Center make the profits on your dreams. The odds of you ever realizing anything from music are slim to none. Once you accept that you can enjoy making music for its own sake.

The only way to make money playing music is gigs. Selling CDs @ at a few bucks each (to the artist) means you need to sell 100 (or way more) to make the same as playing a gig.

Depends on the gig. Most original acts don't make much unless they "make it". You can sell a few CDs at gigs but usually not enough to recoup your costs. Meanwhile band members get restless and move on. Cover bands (good ones) can make $100-200 a man but having more than one or two shows a week is rare and not enough to live on. So unless you get a viral video on YouTube or are "discovered" (1 in a million) you will most likely never make any money. I don't mean to be Debbie Downer but there are a lot of people with stars in their eyes. Forget about it.

Depends on the gig. Most original acts don't make much unless they "make it". You can sell a few CDs at gigs but usually not enough to recoup your costs. Meanwhile band members get restless and move on. Cover bands (good ones) can make $100-200 a man but having more than one or two shows a week is rare and not enough to live on. So unless you get a viral video on YouTube or are "discovered" (1 in a million) you will most likely never make any money. I don't mean to be Debbie Downer but there are a lot of people with stars in their eyes. Forget about it.

Jimmy is one of the few realists around here.

Depends on the gig. Most original acts don't make much unless they "make it". You can sell a few CDs at gigs but usually not enough to recoup your costs. Meanwhile band members get restless and move on. Cover bands (good ones) can make $100-200 a man but having more than one or two shows a week is rare and not enough to live on. So unless you get a viral video on YouTube or are "discovered" (1 in a million) you will most likely never make any money. I don't mean to be Debbie Downer but there are a lot of people with stars in their eyes. Forget about it.

Very correct Jimmy. Independent artists (that don't make it) never make enough off cd sales to recoup the cost to record and press them. Those online promotion sites are a big load of excrement too. To repeat you some more, they only exist to cash in on dreams. It's not a bad thing if they can offer a value for their service, but nearly all of them talk a big game and deliver very little. And the thing that pisses me off the most is that they have a fail-proof system for themselves- If you make it, they claim credit to attract more clients (and make more money!), but if you fail, then they blame you, because you, or your music isn't good enough.

There are professional coverbands on the east coast, bands like emily's toybox, the next, mr greenjeans, etc.. and they gig 3-4 times a week, BUT while they do make a living, it's a meager living.

You might have a better chance of making money by licensing for film & tv
This site is pretty good .. http://www.musicsupervisor.com/

Another is Pump Audio/Getty Images .. though, they do take a 65% chunk out of the front end, I've had the best luck with them.

In any case they will also want instrumental mixes of your tunes as well.

Good point Vinny-

An originals project I was in had put our entire CD onto a few music libraries, and one day a check arrived from ASCAP for $412 roughly. Apparently, the Today Show used a music clip for <30 seconds as background music during a story piece.

And it was very important that we had the songs, music track, and vocal tracks all in separate mixes, as they used the music track without the vocals.

Gotta be careful though, many libraries out there are also shark tanks, where they charge membership dues and talk about having all these connections, yet nobody ever gets placed.

A good option is to go through a music publisher- there are different types of contracts with publishers that you could write a book about, and many are very picky about who they take on, but the good ones have the better library memberships/contact and do all your groundwork for you.

Idk about this stuff but if another A+R rep solicits me for $ for promotion, you might be reading about how he/she came to an untimely end.

I agree Kramerguy, a lot of the places are popping up lately to sell the dream of film&TV licensing .. many look very fishy.

A good publisher that you trust, or at least someone that you know, trusts, is the best.

I would advise ignoring anyone asking you for money to pitch your tune.

I agree with Jimmy! Thats why I WILL NOT play in an all original band. However if you have a good marketing concept you can make BANK off of t-shirts and other products at gigs. The leader of the band I subbed for all summer made as much off t-shirt sales (he also has shirts for the ladies) as he does off the gig. He has a concept that people like and they buy those shirts like hotcakes! He displays the shirts that are like signs advertising the band. No need to hang a banner. FYI it was a cover band called Wiseguy!

I don't doubt that at all.

If the t-shirts are cool, they just vanish as fast as you pulled them out of your vehicle, almost regardless of the price.

(Just remember to spend some time designing a great t-shirt and spend the extra little bit to have a shirt that doesn't self destruct after the 1st time you wash it..lol)

Funny you should mention the shirts.
Awhile back when I put out a couple tapes & T-shirts.
The tapes sold in Japan.
The shirts sold in America.
I didn't sell a single tape in America.
So, people here bought the shirts just because they thought MIKE NOBODY was cool or something.
Go figure.

My cover band asks $600 a night for gigs, we do get it, lately whats happened is that we have some fans who want to book us, they balk at the asking price and so I get 2-3 groups of people together, and say you guys give us $200 per group x 3 and we have our $600 price, then we find a bar or somewhere to have the gig, its kinda ass backwards but it works.

We have talked about how many gigs our band has done thru the years, we figure 1000 to maybe 1500, so 1500 x $300, is $450,000! And we actually at one time were doing over $1000 a night back in the late 80s early 90s. But that money was probably spent on beer and cigs over the time, but when I think of all the things Ive done this hobby has generated enough money to pay for all the guitars and gear I have, I dont think anyone can say that about Golf! LOL!

I dont do much merch anymore, but when I had a bunch we would do anywhere between $40 to $200 a night, not a gold mine, cost of the goods was around 40% so it did add a little extra.

I think you need to think outside of the box musically, if you want to make money then you may want to try getting sponsors that you trade off advertising with. Before the economy tanked, I had a car dealership, a bike dealership, a tatto parlor and a quick stop giving us money to advertise at gigs.

Its a different approach than begging a bar, that probably doesnt have the money to pay you to play.

Ive been in various original bands thru the years, even was in one that got a spec deal, LOL! that thing turned into a loan that haunted me for years. I finally paid it off, cause it was hurting my credit. BUt I never made any kind of money out of original bands, other than an occasional beer keg type party where we handled everything. Venue, Booze, Sound, Bands, but these days I dont want to get into that with the drinking laws like they are.

I think the days of thinking that a venue or club is going to put some real money in your pockets are gone.

Most places that call me these days only want to guarantee 2-300 dollars to play, and many offer us the door.

I think in the end if you are playing music, you have to do it just because you love doing it. This past weekend I sat in with some guys and it turns out that me and the guitarist go way back in the same circles. We were talking and I said why do you still do this? They only had about 40 people at a gig, he said man playing music is just as important to me as sex!

I think anyone getting into music for money is in for a big let down, learn a real trade of some sort and play music for fun.

I think you need to think outside of the box musically, if you want to make money then you may want to try getting sponsors that you trade off advertising with. Before the economy tanked, I had a car dealership, a bike dealership, a tatto parlor and a quick stop giving us money to advertise at gigs.

Its a different approach than begging a bar, that probably doesnt have the money to pay you to play.

Did you go onstage wearing a NASCAR suit?