I've failed at becoming a commercial musician...

[shufflebeat]

Dear Richard

Please listen to what people here are saying. Many posters genuinely wish you well and want to offer constructive advice.

But this latest post shows that you still have a way to go in understanding the tools you're trying to use and how you (might) get your ideas having some genuine commercial bite.

Fixing your mic could be a very simple thing... why just assume you have to throw it away and buy another one? (Is it because you don't know how to go about having it checked-out?) And I find your comment about panning bemusing... either you have a DAW setup which is way different to anything I've ever come across or you're not using the simple controls that (I thought) all DAWS incorporate.

We really do want to help, but it becomes very difficult when you seemingly find it difficult to engage with what we're saying without either ignoring us completely or totally over-reacting. Most of us are not trying to rubbish your efforts... but want to give you practical advice from knowledge of the musical biz and recording/mixing experience.

Pearls.

[Synthman_]

What do you think of this version? I gave each track plenty of headroom like how Mr Houghton told me so what do you think?.... Out to Sea 2016

[jaminem]

Genius, best thing I've heard all year....

[FrVd]

I do not know you, so I will not judge or comment your motivations. Also, perhaps you left the field several years before. As an amateur musician who also has some experience in the field of sheet music software marketing, I would just like to talk about music. I listened to one title you published here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkgLeyPePYc If I was a luna park or a video game arcade owner or a music publisher involved in retro games, I could potentially be interested. It is true that there is a 'noisy element' in your music, yet it may be interesting to create a special atmosphere. So, to all musicians that could still read these pages, I would want to say that, even if the industry is in fact harsh, the main thing is about finding a personal musical identity. It is even the case for listeners, who are the other victims from a certain sort of critics (not all of them) who want to standardize everything. And even technologists sometimes mock unknown artists. Someone here talked about music as a 'commodity'. In fact, music streaming services are, too often, seen as 'music spigots'. Creating music takes time, listening to numerous styles of music and a vast amount of artists take... time. And those people who run website to standardize music, to make it 'radio friendly' and so on do not have time for those who want to think 'out of the box'. Courage!

[hobbyist]

After just receiving my latest Tunecore Song review only to find that the review was so insulting and so poor about my work that classes me as talentless after I've spent thousands of pounds on soft synths,plug-ins,lessons etc. I've finally come to a conclusion that my dream of becoming a successful musician is over.
The industry is in a mess and I think it's now pointless in trying to compete with these low lives who's appalling music now dominates the music industry.
I did what I did, the advice I took, the lessons I did, the many hours,days weeks and years of practising, the money I spent, I've failed and now it seems I might just as well look for something else to do.
I just want to say thanks to the people on here who've provided me with the much advice they've given me on here over the years. It's been challenging and fun but I think it's now time to think about doing something else.
Thankyou.
Respect,
Richard Steed

(Synthman)

Sorry if you thought that doing those things guaranteed success.
Somebody misled you.

You do this for fun. If you hit it big that is a bonus.

There are only two ways to make it big, and both require LUCK in addition to talent and hard work. Also you need to start young.

Either you go viral and get a following and then are able to grow that like Bieber.
Or you start small and work hard with strategic planning to guide you and move up steadily like Gaga.

If you had the basic talent then the lessons were good.
Buying lots of plug ins was questionable.
Spending money to learn how to market yourself would have been more useful. Ditto for learning creativity. And learning what the market wants to buy would have helped.

It is easier to sell what they want to buy, then to make them buy what you want to sell.

[Mike Stranks]

Deleted - flames; petrol....

[Freelance Subversive]

Deleted - flames; petrol....

Mr Stranks, some people just want to see the world burn.

[BJG145]

Necrotastic.

[Music Wolf]

Ahh, this is a bit like when Apple send me 'Memories' slide shows on my phone.

I for one shall be bitterly disappointed if 'Out to Sea' doesn't appear on the SoS Forum compilation album later this year.

[Eddy Deegan]

I for one shall be bitterly disappointed if 'Out to Sea' doesn't appear on the SOS Forum compilation album later this year.

Richard appears not to have been active online here (or anywhere else I could see after a cursory scan around) for the last couple of years. Since this thread was last active and in light of information received subsequently, I revised my view of him and came to the conclusion that he was always well meaning and doing his best.

As such, were he to resurface, and were he to wish to be included on the project then I would accept his contribution on the basis that his heart was in it.

Wherever he is and whatever he is doing now, I wish him well.

[Mike Stranks]

Spot on Eddy!

[forumuser918214]

You have "failure as a commercial musician" in common with nearly every musician out there. There is very little money in making music unless you are extremely talented, good looking, well-connected, or lucky. It is a great and rewarding hobby, though, and a fun social activity, and an opportunity to show off in public every once in a while.

Do you think all those "legendary producers" with crazy haircuts sitting in front of their computers that you on websites hawking software and hardware are really making a good living at it? It looks to me like most of them are sitting in their mom's spare bedroom.

Have fun with the music, and get a degree in engineering for money.

[OneWorld]

Q - how do you make a $million of Jazz?

A - easy, start with $5million

Miles Davis

And I think the principle applies to much other music apart from jazz

A young up and coming artist who toured the clubs, night in night out, she'd built up a following, did all the right things said after all her hard work, hardly made a cent, then she started selling merchandise other than CDs merchandise such as t-shirts and after a year she was £15,000 up on the year before.

Even the guru SiCo said "most of what we sell is the same old crap, we just box it up more sexy though"

Whatever you do, if you like it, keep at it, but even Mozart got tossed into a Pauper's Grave

I suppose you could always write a book on how not to do things, you'd have a large target audience, but then I guess the requisite skills would come naturally to us anyway

[MOF]

even Mozart got tossed into a Pauper's Grave

If he’d had copyright protection, mechanical royalties, merchandising income, film synch payments plus stadium tours (bigger crowds than your average opera house) it might have been a different story.
There again, he could have developed an expensive lifestyle that outstripped all those income streams and still died poor.

[Drew Stephenson]

I suppose you could always write a book on how not to do things, you'd have a large target audience, but then I guess the requisite skills would come naturally to us anyway

David Ford has already written it.
It's a good read actually, 'I choose this. Or How I nearly made it in the music industry' is the full title if I recall correctly.

[Music Wolf]

I for one shall be bitterly disappointed if 'Out to Sea' doesn't appear on the SOS Forum compilation album later this year.

Richard appears not to have been active online here (or anywhere else I could see after a cursory scan around) for the last couple of years. Since this thread was last active and in light of information received subsequently, I revised my view of him and came to the conclusion that he was always well meaning and doing his best.

As such, were he to resurface, and were he to wish to be included on the project then I would accept his contribution on the basis that his heart was in it.

Wherever he is and whatever he is doing now, I wish him well.

I too quickly came to the conclusion that Mr Steed was genuine. His music was not my particular beverage of choice but that didn't mean that it was any less worthy than my own efforts or those of many others here. In this last thread he was suggesting that, because he had failed to achieve commercial success, he was thinking of giving up. He just needed to come to terms with the fact that, whilst he was unlikely to achieve the success that he craved, making music can and should be its own reward. The SoS compilation would have been ideal for him.

It just bemuses me the way that these old threads pop up from time to time.

[Mike Stranks]

It just bemuses me the way that these old threads pop up from time to time.

My observations are that it's frequently a newbie who scans lots of threads, sees one they think they can offer something on and makes a comment - not realising that the thread has been moribund for several years. Then someone else who doesn't know the back-story comments on the most recent post or the thread in general and off we go!

[Music Wolf]

moribund

What a lovely word. I remember in Dennis Potter's 'The Singing Detective' that the author describes 'Elbow' as being the most beautiful word in the English language, not for it's meaning but for the shape that it makes in your mouth when you say it.

I think that 'Moribund' must push it close.

I shall endeavour to introduce it into conversation at some point today.

[ManFromGlass]

I had a friend who thought the word "cake" was it. I’m fond of lugubrious, even though in print it looks kind of ugly, if that’s possible.

[Drew Stephenson]

Lugubrious is a great word, my personal favourite, if such a thing is possible, is 'gnu'.

[MOF]

Lugubrious is a great word, my personal favourite, if such a thing is possible, is 'gnu'.

Lugubrious is a woody word, gnu is on the verge of being a tinny word. Sorry just had to chip in with a bit of Monty Python there.

[Folderol]

For me it was always 'Bifurcated' - but then I'm strange like that

P.S.
Dad showed what a bifurcated rivet was when I was very young and impressionable.

[Elephone]

...unless you are extremely talented, good looking, well-connected, or lucky"

...extremely talented or good looking, ...

I don't think 'being a commercial musician' is something to go for directly anyway, especially not nowadays, unless you're extremely good-looking or in some way attractive.

If you're extremely talented, it'd probably turn out to be a waste of your talent unless it happens to match what's going on right now.

Even back in the 60's and 70's, if you read interviews with those who actually made it to some degree, they had a plan B. They didn't know how long pop music was going to last, let alone their own careers. Musicians like Little Richard and Chuck Berry were dripping in gold within months of making their first hits. But Chuck Berry kept up his painting & decorating business. Both of them never really moved on stylistically probably because their hits were all people wanted to hear.

Most musicians I know did sound engineering courses as a plan B or C, which must be why it's so hard to get those jobs as well.

Did you know that only a tiny percentage of classical pianists at top music schools actually make it? Imagine all that practicing?! That said, most of those who fail could probably blow some minds up close, so I don't know what they end up doing, maybe teaching(?)

I'd say, being an artist is probably equivalent. Nearly all fail. They make something that can't be duplicated and where the point is that it's an original work touched by the artist. Even art photographers tear up extremely expensive prints to keep existing ones valuable and unique. Music can't be touched and can be duplicated with 100% accuracy, so the closest they do is sell merchandise.

If my goal was to make a lot of money, I'd go for that directly in the most time-efficient way possible and do music in my free time. But even then, more than half of new businesses fail!

[Dave B]

Did you know that only a tiny percentage of classical pianists at top music schools actually make it? Imagine all that practicing?! That said, most of those who fail could probably blow some minds up close, so I don't know what they end up doing, maybe teaching(?)

In one particular case, a student was told to concentrate on his clarinet playing as he'd never make the grade to be a concert pianist. He went on to play for Cat Stevens, David Bowie, The Strawbs, Yes, have solo success ... and all it took was an aversion to barbers and a spangly cape!

[johnny h]

Actually I wont totally jack it in just yet. I want to try Ozone 7 because apparantly it allows me to get a true meter reading for mp3 format so ill be able to turned the switches up more to boost my productions for mp3 recordings.
Plus ,when I tried to turn up the mastering compression to boost the vocals, I heard wurring becasue my Aria is broke. I'll buy another one soon and give it another try.

When I read the above I was pretty sure it was an elaborate windup.

However, the productions appear to put so much effort into the wrong direction without any attempt at humour or parody, its hard to imagine what the motivation could be. Maybe we'll never know.