Songwriting - finishing your songs - a blog series

[tea for two]

Approx 40 minute Dance Ambient tune Blue Room by The Orb.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MrzqO7t-Q ... 9vbQ%3D%3D

It's 3 minutes on Top of the Pops.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZxufm48 ... IHBvcHM%3D

::

I purrchased the 40 minute back in the day.

[Sam Spoons]

Mind you, dance music goes on for an eternity, and some of that can be instrumental, so no narrative, and again Classical music? so I guess it's a case of a different beat for different feet, nothing is cast in stone except as they say, the D word the T word and something else but I can't remember what it was. It goes without saying everything needs to end up going somewhere and needs a sense of movement, otherwise what's the point in listening to story that has no direction, otherwise it's not a narrative but a drone, it would sound like "The train standing on platform 3 is the 10 o clock to somewhere, mind the gap"

True, dance music can be repetitive and won't usually have a complex narrative. Classical music has rhythm and structure, and narrative, a good Jazz solo will have a narrative, i.e. a direction it is going, and while an instrumental can't tell a story as complex as one told with words it can still lead the listener on a journey.

Love the train analogy I might try to use that in a song one day...

[BigRedX]

Approx 40 minute Dance Ambient tune Blue Room by The Orb.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MrzqO7t-Q ... 9vbQ%3D%3D

And it's a perfect example of the song length being tailored for a specific purpose, in this case the rules at the time were that a "single" could have no more than 40 minutes of music on it, so The orb decide to create a single 39' 58" long track expressly to fit the criterion.

[N i g e l]

ELP's Brain Salad Surgery, although made up of several songs per side,

Karn Evil 9 1st Impression ends side 1 & begins side 2.

The interface fades down and up with just a single synth note with randomised filter.

And it's a perfect example of the song length being tailored for a specific purpose......

in todays world of unlimited length, there is a "minimum length to register a play" thing going on.

For example 8hrs of soothing white noise ?
or
35s of soothing white noise ? has to be put on a loop, and each loop qualifies as a play.

[Drew Stephenson]

30 seconds to register a play on most platforms. And most of them have mechanisms to identify white/pink noise / silence / non-musical tracks and remove them from the payment schemes.
It's always a bit of an arms race though.

[tea for two]

David Gilmour talking briefly about the Guitar arpeggio that appears at 3min55sec on Shine on you crazy diamond which was a snippet of a noodle Dave did that spawned a song.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/sgD12tFfmw0

Peter Frampton says similar regarding Do you feel like we do.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ApsBc1YiLXc

Somehow recognising the diamond in the ruff as it were thereafter making it into something.
Perhaps it's easier when it's a whole band : to take a snippet of a noodle to a finished song.

::

Although this is something I do a fair amount for instrumentals : noodling thereafter taking bits n bobs to make a piece.

[amanise]

Mark Knopfler like a good noodle too. Even used the exact same term to describe it.

[Arpangel]

Noticing a lot of references to past popular musicians.
Why? if you think you're in any way inferior to them then your wasting your time getting involved in any creative pursuit.

[James Perrett]

Why? if you think you're in any way inferior to them then your wasting your time getting involved in any creative pursuit.

I don't know about you, but I get a real buzz from creating something that I like to listen to (and hope other people might like too).

[Drew Stephenson]

Noticing a lot of references to past popular musicians.
Why? if you think you're in any way inferior to them then your wasting your time getting involved in any creative pursuit.

Umm, I can* consider myself vastly inferior to Mark Knopfler but still be happy with what I'm creating and thinking it's a worthwhile pursuit. Comparison is not always the thief of joy, sometimes it's a spark to further progress.

* And do.

[tea for two]

Noticing a lot of references to past popular musicians.
Why? if you think you're in any way inferior to them then your wasting your time getting involved in any creative pursuit.

Every sincere musician composer has been is granted ability to make sincere music to whichever ability level by our Origin.
Thereby our Origin experiences sincere music making thru us thru them whichever ability level of music making we have : since we are biological conduits for our Origin.
This means we are to be content grateful with even revel in our lot.

I have noticed from various posts you've made over the years even recently you are not content with your lot interms of your musical ability. This is erroneous for you to feel this way. As our Origin is experiencing music making thru you with the specific ability you been granted. You are not aware of this neither is most sincere music makers. It's neither here nor there whether you we are aware or not.
An important thing is to be content grateful with your our lot whichever level of musical ability you we have been granted. Thereafter to make the most of your our lot. To even revel in your our lot.

[amanise]

Noticing a lot of references to past popular musicians.
Why? if you think you're in any way inferior to them then your wasting your time getting involved in any creative pursuit.

Anyone with any respect for their craft and their own abilities harbours respect for those that have gone before them and paved the way ahead. That can be anything from a complimentary comment on a forum, to acknowledgement of the other acts around you as you take the stage at a festival. To not do so, to my mind, would just be psychotic. We're all in this mess together.

[Arpangel]

OK, hhhmmmm? OK again, maybe, some of us put ourselves down too much, and maybe, we shouldn’t dismiss the fact that we all have the potential to do interesting stuff, no matter who we are, looking up to those we admire is natural, but, success comes in many forms. Often we don’t realise, or aren’t aware, of how valuable and important our efforts are, in comparison to others.
It's so hard to evaluate ourselves, our work, when you’re the one that's doing it.
Someone once said to me "it's only good in your opinion because you did it"

We're all in this mess together.

You’re in good company, that’s what Bill Frisell said about musicians.

[BigRedX]

Since the appreciation of music is entirely subjective, I don't have the problem of being over-awed by musicians and composers who theoretically have more ability than me. Most of the music I like is collaborative effort between various musicians and composers and is generally greater than the supposed sum of their component parts.

[Drew Stephenson]

Part 15 - Beyond self-recording

This episode was originally going to cover group recording, loudness, mastering and distribution but that would have been far too long so we're just looking at the recording side today.

So far we've largely assumed that you're working for, by and with yourself; the key exception being Part 8 where we looked at co-writing. We're going to build on that now and briefly talk about recording / producing groups and remote collaborators.

Broadly speaking, groups fall into two categories when it comes to recording. There are 'traditional' set-ups, where the group is self-balancing and arranging (perhaps with a conductor) and your job is to faithfully capture that sound. Classical music, brass band music, and a lot of folk music fall into this camp. The other set-up is the more modern approach, typically used in pop, rock, country, metal and similar productions, where each instrument tends to be captured separately with a view to much more intensive mixing and production phases.

Type 1 - 'traditional' recording. Stick a pair of mics in front of the group, pan one left, one right and you're done right? Well, you might be. But these things can get quite complicated quite quickly. What kind of mics are you going to use for your stereo array? What kind of array are you going to choose? Where should you put that array? Does it even need to be stereo? Where should you put the group for that matter? Etc. etc. etc.

It's actually the last question that probably drives the answers to the others. Are you recording the group at a concert? At their rehearsal? In the live pub session? Guess what? There are plenty of books about this too, but I'm not going to go into the technical stuff here because actually, "stick a pair of mics in front of them and see what it sounds like," is the crux of it. How you fix any deficiencies in that sound is where it gets technical and far too long for this blog.

But there are some other things to think about that will apply more generally:

Understand the brief. Is the recording for release purposes? For the group to listen back to for self-analysis and improvement? Are you the one driving it for a bit of fun / development? Make sure everyone is clear on the objective and outcome and that everyone is comfortable with it. Beware of 'scope creep' - where you start with one objective "It's just for us to listen to and analyse" and it morphs into something else, "We thought it'd be great to sell these as CDs."

Rehearsals. Always try and head along to a few rehearsals first. Introduce yourself to everyone, make sure that clarity of objective is there, and really listen to what's happening without being distracted by thinking about tech. Maybe put your phone or a portable recorder recording in the background, but this is your chance to move around and use your ears. If your main recording will be in the same room as the rehearsals that's great. If it'll be a different venue then get to that venue too and try and make sure you hear some similar music there too. Location recording is a big topic though, so let's park that one!

Red light fever. No matter how well someone can perform something at rehearsal or on their own, when the recording light comes on, people will feel an extra bit of pressure, and will* either not play as well or make mistakes. Your job is to reassure and relax people. Expect errors, look and seem completely comfortable with it, play down the impact, point out the good bits, re-set, and go again. Just another day in the office, no biggie, "We're not paying for tape anymore," etc. etc.

Your job is to serve. Go back to the brief. Nowhere in that initial understanding will there be anything about the purpose of the session being to make the recorderist feel special. If the job is to provide something for the group's internal assessment, then your job is an accurate and honest recording. If it's for a release, then an 'accurate but flattering' recording. If you're recording a live concert then your job is to be as invisible as possible so that the live audience get the best gig they can. If something you are doing is getting in the way of those outcomes, find another way to do it.

Apply those principles and a pair of well positioned microphones and take it from there.

Type 2 - 'band recording'. There are some bands out there, in some genres, where you can take the same two-microphone approach. But not many, and even fewer at the levels that readers of this blog are likely to be playing at. So things are going to get more complex. More microphones, more set-up time, more channels, more mixing, more changes of style between songs, etc. etc.

You may be thinking this automatically becomes more expensive and, to an extent, you'd be right. But here's a link to a series of blogs I did about recording a band on a budget of £50. https://blinddrewsmusic.blogspot.com/20 ... art-1.html (23 parts but some are very short.) If I recall correctly, the most expensive bit of equipment (apart from the instruments) was about £200.

And those general principles above still apply just as much, with one addition: the more mics you have involved, the longer it will take to mix and the more chance there is of phase problems and other mush. Minimising the number of mics is a good principle to start with.

And for the final word on this, there's the link that Hugh shared to the interview with Simon Eadon from Gramophone.co.uk.

Remote recording

Somewhat horrifyingly we're now nearly a quarter of the way through the 21st Century, and whilst we may appear to be going backwards in some ways, our ability to make and record music is only going forwards. One way in which it is doing so is the ability to collaborate remotely.

There are two** main approaches to remote recording; one is the video-led approach that sprung up during lockdown of a band playing the same track, in their different locations, and being mixed together. The other is the more common method where someone adds a part in their studio and then sends it you to mix into the rest of the track (or vice versa) - remote overdubbing basically. We'll tackle these in reverse order as the video approach is really just an extension of the latter.

Remote over-dubbing. Let's assume then that you have a song and a bunch of willing volunteers dotted around the country, or the world. Really it's pretty simple. Record a guide track and share that with your collaborators, get their pieces in return by email (or whatever transfer platform you prefer), and mix it all together.

You'll need to agree a few technical things (like formats, sample rates etc.) but the most important thing is to make all the expectations clear. Is somebody sending you something expecting it to be incorporated completely and without adjustment, or are they offering you a smorgasbord from which you can pick and choose? Or something in between. Any option is fine as long as everyone is clear and in agreement. It's also worth being really clear up front about who the decision maker is and what will happen with any money. Get that bit written down, even if you don't expect to make anything.

What you will probably have to come to terms with, and learn some new skills on, is... well, turd-polishing is probably a bit rude, but let's call it 'making the best of things.' There's a good chance that you might know some wonderful musicians who would love to be involved, but the chances of them also having good recording skills, a decent mic, and a decent room are considerably lower. Remember those filter and EQ tips and be prepared to ask for some stuff again (and maybe offer to help people with their set-up if necessary).

Remote video. Really this is very similar but you're adding another bunch of files, another editing tool of some kind, and another chance to over-complicate things and make a mess. But we are increasingly in a video-led world so this is a useful thing to experiment with.

During the Covid-19 lockdowns my band did a couple of videos like this and, to save everyone the hassle of covering it again here, I wrote up an article on how to do it at the time: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... cial-media

OK, that's been a bit of a detour but hopefully of some help for anyone working as part of a group rather than solo. We'll definitely get to mastering and distribution next time.

As usual, links and the rest of the series are here: https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... rding.html

* Unless you're recording professionals, in which case you're probably not the target audience for this blog.

** Everything can be split into two categories if you generalise enough!

[Drew Stephenson]

Part 16 - Finishing or Mastering-for-cheapskates

Hang in there buddy, we're nearly at the end, but I have had to split this into two parts. We'll get to copyright and distribution next time.

Mastering
On the wider internet there is a fair bit of nonsense spoken about what mastering is and why it is, or isn't, important. Let's unpack some of that now (in a somewhat simplified way) so we can get to our goal of finishing and releasing our song.

In the Good* Old Days(TM) a mastering engineer's primary job was to take a recording and make sure it was in good shape to be transferred to the physical medium it was going to be distributed on. With vinyl this meant understanding a great deal about the physical limitations of the medium and how that affected things like low frequency extension, loudness and even where on the record certain songs needed to go because of the difference between the edge and centre of the record. They would also, therefore, need to understand how to work within these limitations without ruining the artistic vision and still making the sound work on other media.
With CDs a lot of these physical restrictions disappear but then there are things like preparing the DDP file for the manufacturers and a load of other stuff.
If you are still intending to release something via a physical medium, especially vinyl, then I cannot stress enough how much I would recommend finding a decent mastering engineer and paying them their worth.

But many of us here will only ever release our music digitally, do we still need a mastering engineer, or mastering at all?
Well, technically no. You can take the stereo file straight from your DAW and upload it to the world. Maybe it'll be fine.
But a good mastering engineer nowadays does a lot more than just prepare your music for a physical medium. They'll have a decent, full-range monitoring set-up and expert ears. They can spot things you've missed or make suggestions for improvements. They can advise on track running order, genre norms, overall tonal balance and portability to other systems (will it work in a club, on an iphone speaker etc.)
A good mastering engineer has a huge amount of skill and experience and, digital or physical media aside, can help make your track sound better.
But a good mastering engineer expects to be paid according to that skill and expertise, which means they're not cheap. So for a bunch of folks reading this blog that's just not an option.
Sorry mastering engineers.

Finishing
So let's talk about mastering your own music or, to be a bit more accurate about, a process I like to call 'Finishing'. It's like mastering but for cheapskate amateurs.
We're going to assume that physical media are not involved. And we're going to assume that you only have the standard set of audio tools that came with your DAW.
So we're going to focus on three things: EQ, dynamic range and loudness. And we're only going to lightly touch on all of them because, spoiler alert, there's a book recommendation for this too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Mast ... 0240523709

Firstly I'd recommend bouncing your mixed track down to a stereo file (or files if you're doing an album or EP) and making sure you've got 3-6 dB of headroom**. This will help you focus on the task in hand and not get stuck in an endless loop of tweakery.

EQ. A useful guide here is to find a pink noise generator (or file) and use that as your starting point. Set your track to be as loud as the pink noise track and then listen for parts of the spectrum that are either poking above or hidden by the noise; then tweak accordingly. In my limited experience you may often find that a small low end boost, a low-mid cut and a high-shelf boost will get you in the ballpark. Again, it's useful to have an EQ with a nice graphical interface here to see what's going on. One thing you will notice is that when EQing a mix, rather than a track, small movements can make a huge difference - so play carefully.

Dynamic range. Real life has a staggeringly large dynamic range (the difference between the quietest and loudest sound), and live music also has a huge dynamic range; far louder than we can, or would want to, capture on a recording. We want to be able to comfortably hear the quiet bits without deafening ourselves on the loud bits and vice versa. Typically dynamic range varies by genre: classical music may have a 20-30dB range, jazz or folk can be 13-20dB, rock, pop and RnB are typically around 10dB and EDM will frequently be around 6dB. Your tools to manage this are automation, compression and limiting. And I'd generally use them in that order.
So I might bring up a quiet intro by a couple of dB using automation, I might take a couple of dB off the peaks of a loud bit using compression, and I might get the overall loudness and true peak levels in the right place using a limiter. I might do more, less or none of that depending on what the track needs, there is no template to apply here.

Loudness. Loudness is how loud the track is, generally measured in LUFS (of some variant). It's a measure of how loud a sound is perceived to be. We don't need to delve into the technicalities here but it is important to understand how it's used and what that means for your track. Most streaming services and TV broadcasts use loudness normalisation. In short this means that if you chop and change between tracks on a service (by listening to a playlist perhaps) then you won't need to be constantly reaching for the volume control because things will be the same 'loudness'.
This is A GOOD THING. Personally I don't think the loudness wars are over yet, but things have backed off a bit from the craziness of a few years ago.
As with dynamic range, different genres typically have different loudness ranges. EDM and mainstream pop, RnB and hip-hop may have an integrated loudness (LUFSi, measured over the whole track) of -7 to 10LUFSi; Rock will often be around -10 to -14 LUFSi; country, indie, singer-songwriter type genres will frequently be around -12 to -16; jazz, folk and classical will typically have lower levels. You may have gathered from this that loudness and dynamic range are connected. This is because there is an upper limit on the signal, and as you increase the loudness of your track the dynamic range gets squeezed. Those 'loud' tracks of -6 or -7 LUFSi have very little dynamic range. Everything is loud all the time.
Or is it? Well, it might be on CD or the radio, but when you stick that track onto a streaming service that uses loudness normalisation (pretty much all of them) then it will turn it down until it's as loud as everything else. Here are some approximate numbers for the loudness normalisation levels of different platforms: iTunes -16LUFSi; Spotify, Youtube***, Tidal and SoundCloud -14LUFSi; Amazon -13LUFSi.
So what does this mean for your track? Well the first and most important thing is that these numbers are not targets. Mix the track as it needs to be. But understand that if your track ends up being louder than these numbers, it will get turned down. So if your mix ends up at -12LUFSi then it'll get turned down fractionally on Amazon, but a bit more noticeably on iTunes. If it's at -10LUFSi then it'll get turned down on everything and you're sacrificing a chunk of dynamic range (that you could be using to add impact and emotion) for the sake of the tiny number of people who listen with loudness normalisation turned off. As you increase the loudness past these typical normalisation levels there is a real risk that your material ends up sounding flat and stale. It won't be loud all the time, it'll be, well, average, normal, humdrum... forgettable even?

There's quite a lot to take in here, so here's a link to a series of videos from mastering engineer Ian Shepherd and Sound On Sound that give you a bit more to work with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIOIi9G1ClI
Dragging us back to the purpose of this blog series... for us, the purpose of this finishing process is to make sure that our track is going to sit comfortably with other, similar tracks on streaming services. Mastering is a huge subject, there are many rabbit holes you can go down, but we're just about getting our stuff done and out there. So focus on the prize.

Next week: distribution.

* "Good" not guaranteed. Or likely.
** Headroom (in this case) is the gap between the true peak signal and the 0dB full scale mark.
*** Youtube Music, for reasons known only to them, has a different loudness normalisation limit of -7LUFSi. That's right, not -17, -7. So basically it's only going to turn down the most ridiculously loud of tracks. So if you do use this service regularly you can expect to be reaching for the volume control on a frequent basis.

Links and the rest of the series here as usual: https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... g-for.html

[Drew Stephenson]

Ah crap, I knew I forgot something! Here's this week's update.

Part 17 - Distribution Strategies

So you've 'finished' your song up to a standard and loudness that you're happy with, now you just lob it up on your website and let it go viral right?

Depending on your definition of 'finished' then potentially, yes. If our objective is to get something written, recorded and released then our job is done and we can give ourselves a pat on the back and move on.

Seriously, that's a piece of art that is out in the world that didn't exist until you turned your hand to it. You created something from nothing, and that's a kind of magic.

But if we're hoping to attract a few more listeners, and we don't have the same levels of 'brand recognition' as Taylor Swift, then we're going to need to put in a bit of work.

This work is 'marketing'. It's a dirty word, and a dirtier business, but at some point you're going to have to face into it.

Well, it's not really. Basically marketing is just letting potential customers (your audience) know that you have a product (your songs) that might interest them. If this isn't something you've really considered before, here's a really useful primer: https://somethingdifferent.co.nz/musing ... marketing/

But if all that sounds like psychobabble, then here are some basic principles to nail down.

Know your audience.
Firstly you have to understand who your potential audience is and what they're looking for. If your answer is 'everyone and everything' then I have good and bad news for you. The good news is that you've got lots of potential listeners. The bad news is that they're the same potential listeners who are currently being adequately catered for by the major labels and their roster of super-stars. And guess what? If you want to cut through then you're going to need a major label advertising budget. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you don't have one of those...
So you're going to need to get more granular. If you play live, that's your starting audience. If you've already released stuff online and you have followers on social media, that's your audience too. But both of these groups are fickle, so try and find some way to capture those audience email addresses, because this is still one of the biggest tools in the box.
This is another subject that could (and does) fill a book, so we're going to move on for now, but do think about how you're going to (legally) get those emails...

Meet your audience where they are.
There are about eight billion people on the planet. With all manner of different tastes and preferences. The good news is that this means that even for a niche product there can still be a big audience. The bad news is that the audience might be spread all over the globe. The good news is that your digital media can be distributed all over the globe. The bad news is that so can everyone else's. But the point is that you have to get your music into the ears of potential listeners. If your main audience is a following for your live show, that's brilliant; you can sell tickets, CDs and T-shirts. If you don't have a live audience then you're going to need to be on some kind of streaming service - because that's where your audience is. Personally I would recommend being on all of them, even the ones you've never heard of. My third biggest streaming site by plays is Resso - I'd never heard of them but they serve India, Indonesia and Brazil; which turn out to be my 3rd, 6th and 8th biggest markets. Who knew?
So when you sign up to a distributor*, make sure you're signing with one who will get your content on all the platforms and in all the markets.
The other thing to consider is 'remote live' - go live on Youtube or Twitch and allow the world to come to your intimate live gig.

Have a plan.
But for any of this to work you're going to need a plan. I was listening to a video this week where a chap was going through his 'guaranteed' 60 day release plan. And, to be fair, it was good plan that probably works well. The only downside is that you need to have three release-ready tracks and, for each one, 20-30 videos. Yep. 60-90 videos to record, edit, produce, mix and have ready to drop on a regular basis over the 180 days of the release window.
I humbly suggest that if you have time to do that then you're not holding down a full time day job and you probably have a 'team' working with you. And you're probably not reading this blog.
But there are some things you'll need to figure out. When you're planned release date is, how long your distributor needs to get your release ready, add a week to get onto release radar for Spotify, who else are you sending it to (bloggers? promoters?) and how long do they need. Work back from there and add in things like listening parties and your social media campaign leading up to release day.
How much detail you put in is up to you, as long as it's enough to keep you hitting the deadlines.

Have some budget.
There is a breed of musician (and this probably applies to other creatives as well) that believes that any kind of advertising or marketing is, in some unspecified but highly emotional way, selling out. They will argue that it's all about the music and that, somehow, if your music is good enough it will magically find its way into a listeners ear on an invisible wave of raw talent and ability. Or something equally ridiculous.
Approximately 120,000 new songs are added to streaming services every day. Even if 99% of them were terrible (pro tip, they're not), then that's 1,200 good songs going up every day. The only way to cut through that level of content is to pay for some promotion of some kind. It doesn't matter how many friends you have on social media, your content will only reach a fraction of them unless you pay to promote it. It doesn't matter how closely your song style matches your targeted playlister, unless you pay for the premium service it won't get listened to. Even if you're just selling merch and hard copy at gigs you still need to be able to let people know about the gig.
It doesn't have to be a lot, but work out what you can afford and how best to use it - this will be different for everyone.

Copyright.
I could, literally, write a book about copyright; it's pros and cons, history of successes and abuses, how it's been corrupted and how it could be reformed... In fact I wrote a manifesto years ago in a series not unlike this one. But that doesn't help you with finishing your song, so we'll just cover a few quick basics.
Firstly: you cannot copyright an idea. You can only copyright something that has been 'fixed' by way being written down or recorded. It is the expression of the idea that gets the protection, not the idea.
The corollary to this is that in the UK, the USA and the EU, copyright exists the moment that a creation is fixed. So as soon as you write down that lyric, or record that melody, then it is protected by copyright - you do not need to register it.
However, in some countries (like the USA), you will be very limited in what legal action you can take if you don't register the work. You'll need to find out whatever the rules are in your country and then decide if you want to pay for registration. This should be part of your plan that we talked about above and definitely part of your budget.
Whether it's worthwhile is a decision only you can make. Personally I think obscurity is a far bigger problem that piracy or passing off for the starting musician, but if you're a bit more established, or hope to become so, then plan it in.

Some rights reserved.
Contrary to popular opinion, copyright is not an all-or-nothing choice. In 2001 Creative Commons was founded and that gives you a range of options with regard to how much control, if any, you want to apply to your work. You can find out more about the options here: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/

Wrapping up
And that, you'll be pleased to know, is pretty much it.
We've written our song. Arranged and recorded it. Mixed and produced it. "Finished" and released it.
Now it is a thing out in the wild with a future of its own.

But I am not quite done. Next week we'll do a bit of trouble-shooting / problem solving and then we'll finish off with a worked example, from scrapbook to Spotify if you like.

* Some platforms will let you upload and distribute your own content; Bandcamp and Youtube being two examples. But the big streaming platforms don't, you'll need to go through a distributor like CDBaby, TuneCore, Distokid, Ditto or many others. These are also called aggregators and they will put your music on the streaming platforms for some kind of fee. Some charge a flat rate per release (good for infrequent releases and albums generally), some charge an annual fee (good for frequent releases and lots of singles). Before you sign up, make sure you understand what happens to your music if you stop using them.

As usual, links and previous stuff is all here: https://roughtorelease.blogspot.com/202 ... egies.html

[James Perrett]

That's all very interesting and pretty comprehensive.

The one thing that I think you may have glossed over a little is the part where you mention paid promotion. I'd love to know a bit more about your ideas on that. I know, from some recent releases that I've been involved in, how much difference a good publicist can make but do you think you need to employ a publicist or have you found other effective methods of paid promotion?

[BigRedX]

I've used proper paid-for promotion once. It was about 14 years ago now for The Terrortones' first single and IIRC cost a couple of thousand pounds (split 4 ways between the band members it wasn't too bad) plus 100 or so physical copies of the single. I'd always been fiercely DIY in the past, but the landscape had changed considerably since I last had any musical product to promote and our singer was in the middle of a music business degree, so I bowed to his superior knowledge.

TBH it worked pretty well. We got a lot of very favourable reviews (mostly on-line) and there was a short article about me as a bassist in a musician's magazine. There were very few negative reviews or ones that simply regurgitated the press release, which was very encouraging. The promotions agency we used were very good in being able to effectively target our single to people who were going to like it and sent it out to several websites and publications (most of whom gave us great reviews) who I would have never considered as I would have thought that we weren't "rock" enough for them.

However for our subsequent releases we did our own promotion, using those who had said nice things about us previously as a starting point. By then the band had made a name for ourselves within the genre so it was mostly a question of reminding people who we were and that we had new music available.

One thing that is worth mentioning is that a lot of reviewers will expect to get an actual copy of what you would like them to review. Just a link to a digital download won't always cut it. Even when you think you are being helpful. We put out a mini album on compact cassette and sent our reviewers a special promotional CD copy, and got several complaints from people who wanted cassettes! So my advice would be to send a copy of the actual physical product you are selling as well as a download link for convenience.

And of course that means that if you are going to produce a record/CD/cassette of your music. you need to budget for all those copies you are going to be giving away, and cost of actually sending them. Remember that impressive looking album on vinyl costs a lot more to post than the same on CD. Even when we have been highly selective about who we sent promotional copies to it was still a minimum of 50 and often 100.

[Drew Stephenson]

Sorry James, missed this last night.
The short answer is that my data is a bit out of, well, date on this now.
When I started this series I had a plan that included some playlist targeting, some print advertising and some online advertising. Unfortunately that budget got diverted to getting the car through some difficulties...
So I don't have the numbers that I was hoping to share.

I then got caught in a bit of quandary about whether it was worth trying to promote something that was no longer a new release. I'm still undecided on this.

I've not used a paid publicist before, in the spirit of DIY (and being a cheapskate) I've always done the posters and flyering myself (virtual and physical). Honestly I've never known if any of that was ever effective. The best promotion I've done has generally been either via direct email or my personal network.

On that side of things, one thing that I think does work, for me at least, is paid promotion on Facebook. This is still the social media platform where I've got the biggest reach and just dropping a small amount (£5 makes a difference) on promoting a post about an upcoming gig or event can increase the number of eyeballs on it 10 fold. Based on when we did and didn't do this with the band (before lockdown) that does correlate with an increased footfall at gigs. It's harder to confirm but I think it has made a difference to attendance at virtual launch parties as well.

Facebook user numbers in the UK peaked in 2022 but is still high, apparently though people are spending less time on the platform per visit though but I've not seen anything solid on that for this year.

In terms of other online platforms:
Youtube remains a bit of a must-have for discovery but I've never tried paid promotion on there because without a large follower count you're still shouting into the void.
Instagram seems to be weirdly popular with musicians and had a bit of a phase for live streaming during lockdown but I've never found it remotely effective for actual engagement. People like a picture and scroll by without registering any further information.
I left Twitter/X when Musk took over but before then I found that to be pretty much useless too. Content is visible for such a short time that you either need to be posting hourly (and pissing off people who only follow a small number of accounts) or it just never gets seen.
This seems to apply to Threads and Bluesky as well (based on my experience so far).
I'm not on TikTok but I don't think my audience is likely to be either so I'm not sure I'm missing anything there - especially as people scroll past even faster.
As a musician it's worth remembering that 90% of videos on social media are watched without sound anyway...

One thing to remember with promotion (especially if you're paying for it) on X, Facebook, Threads and Instagram is that they all throttle the reach of off-platform links. So if you're linking to your own website, a Spotify page, or Youtube channel etc, these will all have limited reach. Instead I'd recommend setting up an on-platform event that holds all the relevant detail and then promoting the event and/or posts that link back to the event.

Whilst I'm thinking about Spotify, this is probably second only to Youtube in terms of discovery so having a presence on there is pretty much a requirement if you want people to find your stuff - I think of it as an advertising platform rather than a revenue one (especially given this year's changes).
I keep meaning to look at the advertising options on Spotify itself because every time I go on there I get the same tiny selection of ads - but they are almost all for premium brands so it's probably very expensive.

Like I said, I had hoped to have some much more up to date info this year but sadly life got in the way.

[OneWorld]

Again Drew, I doff my cap to you for sharing this, it's an impressive series you've done

[Drew Stephenson]

Again Drew, I doff my cap to you for sharing this, it's an impressive series you've done

Thank you, hopefully some bits find some use somewhere at some point for some people!

[Drew Stephenson]

I've used proper paid-for promotion once...

I know, from some recent releases that I've been involved in, how much difference a good publicist can make...

I wonder if a list of good publicists would be a useful thing to add to either the music business forum or the useful information archive?
Not knowing who is trustworthy (in a notoriously untrustworthy field) has definitely put me off in the past.

[BigRedX]

We used Prescription PR for The first Terrortones release. I believe that they were recommended by one of Mr Venom's course tutors (he was studying a music business degree at the time). However this was over 13 years ago, so I have no current knowledge of their effectiveness.

What I found most useful was their ability to target the right reviewers for websites and publications who I wouldn't normally have thought to contact, because I was still thinking too "indie" and hadn't considered that the more traditional "rock" press would be interested in the band (I was very wrong).

One thing I can't stress enough is getting your Press Release written in such a way that you would be happy to see when it is simply copied and pasted as a news article in a blog/web site/publication. I've fallen foul of this several times in the past when I produced semi-incoherent trains of thought and then found them repeated verbatim by whoever I had sent it to.

[amanise]

Hmm. Very interesting and thought provoking. I've deliberately waited on this one to see what other comments come in, because I have/had a feeling that of all the areas covered so far this one will be the one where we find we're all struggling and trying various things which we eventually find don't really work - and certainly don't pay for themselves.

The main problem to me seems that it's all so much in a state of flux here. One wonders whether it will ever settle down again in the same way as things were once upon a time. Almost impossible to write guidance for, so well done for having a go! In respect of paid for promotion services for streaming (gig promotion doesn't seem to change much) it's really hard to distinguish genuine services from scam attempts in my experience. This particular area is really where the rubber meets the road in terms of expenditure and potential income. I have yet to see a way where any of the genuine services on offer become reasonable in terms of the potential streaming income coming back in. Short of becoming a merch salesman on top of a music producer that is.

If there are any ways of preparing the unwary for the number of scam attempts they're likely to face when they try and promote their music, that would probably be welcome.