Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

>> "Don’t even care to get on streaming platforms in the beginning. They are all more or less under the control of the labels and you would be the luckiest person in the world if you can buy a box of beer from the revenues after a year or two."

When you can get your music on iTunes, Amazon etc. and all the streaming platforms for $50 (CDBaby) there is no reason not to. I really don't understand the authors reasoning here. It seems to go against everything they said about making your music available legally because people will steal it otherwise. Why withhold from any platform?

Also the advice on recording yourself isn't great. Sure you can pick up a book or look on YouTube but recording and producing music well is difficult. Mixing is difficult, especially without high quality equipment. The only way to get good is through lots of experience I've found, there isn't a shortcut.

>> "Yes you will need some money for equipment"

You will need a lot of money for equipment if you want to sound good. I use an Apogee ONE (pretty basic I/O device/preamp) and that alone is £300. A Shure SM58 mic (for vocals) is £100. An AKG 451 for recording acoustic instruments is £300. All this not to mention the recording software, a decent computer, and your guitars, drums, etc.

If you record in a studio all this is provided (and they provide much higher quality stuff than you could ever afford). They also usually have an assortment of high quality musical equipment (amps, guitars etc.) which you are free to use.

Unfortunately, what you list as required recording equipment is barely enough for a demo, let alone finished track. A good recording mic for vocals is about £2K, good converters will set you back as much.

>> Also the advice on recording yourself isn't great

It's borderline terrible, in fact. It's the same one as "build your website on your own, there are plenty of PHP tutorials on the internet, how hard can it be?".

You absolutely don't need to spend thousands on mics, pres and AD converters to get good recordings, there's plenty of top quality options that are much more affordable. I'd put money on 95% of the music listening population not being able to tell the difference between a £2k mic and a £500 one in blind tests.

Obviously you'd have to be willing to put an exorbitant amount of time into getting good, but that's another issue.

So get on kickstarter, use the money to pay to rent a recording studio and for an audio engineer to fix the recordings. Pay 50 bucks to get on CdBaby. Assuming 10k to rent the studio and pay the sound guy then you need a thousand true fans to pay 10 bucks and that should be doable.

Exactly that's what I would recommend. The only catch is what if you're just starting out and don't have 1000 fans?

Well, find an agent that likes what you do and willing to bet some money on you... like... wait! A record company!

Work a real job and live frugally putting your savings towards your dream job. That's how most startups get launched.

Work harder and figure out who the gatekeepers are, then get on reddit and/or youtube. Grow your subscribers to 10k and that should be enough to get 10% to back you with money.

I am not saying it is easy, but given that you have spent years learning to play, you should be able to spend a couple months to get noticed.

No you don't you can go to studios or rehearsal rooms where you can rent all the stuff you want and pretty cheap. Even if you spend 5-10k you will have spend A LOT LESS than any label. You get the money back directly, if you are break even you get to keep all the money. Its a much better bet than hoping to win the record label lottery. Its no guarantee to be successful but along the way you will get a good grasp what your chances are and if its worth recording a smurf death metal techno album. :)

Lets say you pay 10$ for Spotify and you only listen to my music for a whole month then Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Beyonce will get 99.999999% of your 10$. Its because all the money, be it advertisement or subscriptions is thrown in a huge bucket and divided by play count. It will take you a looooong loooong time to get even one single dollar out of this model.

>> "Its because all the money, be it advertisement or subscriptions is thrown in a huge bucket and divided by play count."

Source?

Also, that's still not a reason not to be on it. Lots of people use Spotify and if your music isn't available on it they either won't listen at all (you lose) or will download it illegally (you lose).

In this case people from indie and major labels. You have to trust me there but it might be even in their terms and conditions. On the web you will also find plenty of artists complaining about that model.

Furthermore you can't just be on Spotify. You need a middleman to be allowed in the labels domain. Like I said, most streaming services are controlled by the labels. Now there are some cheap proxy companies that will publish you on Spotify and sure, you can do that but in the beginning of your journey - which I was referring to - you don't need to bother. It just won't give you anything. Later its surely nice to be there but even then you won't get anything out of it money wise.

I still respectfully disagree about Spotify :) With CDBaby you can pay $50 and be on all online retailers including paid and free streaming services. With so many services out there (and so many people choosing to use different ones) I think it's best to be on them all or you risk people not being able to listen to you.

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