Recording, and Some Grousing about the Music Business
© Adam Granger
In this piece on recording and recording studios, I'll talk about the business end of the recording business as it relates to me and I to it.
Until the era of digital music started big time in—let's call it 1996—musicians were beholden to recording studios and record labels if they wanted to release an album. This was not a good situation, for several reasons: recording studios were expensive, albums (i.e. vinyl) had to be manufactured in multiples of a thousand, and record labels were infested with music business people--not my favorite demographic.
The home recording/digital era changed all of that, and all of the changes were for the better as regards the musician. Today, using a good microphone and any of a number of digital recording devices and software, one can, wherever and whenever one wants to, record an album that matches that of a studio in technical quality (Please note that this is my opinion). Also, CD duplicators can and will create CDs in numbers far smaller than a thousand. So the big change that has happened in the last fifteen years is that we musicians can do our own recording and release our own CDs as independently of music business people as we choose. This is huge.
Another issue for musicians is that of distributorship: how does one get one's albums to one's fans? Again thanks to the digital age, there are options that did not exist before. Where one had to go through a label and/or a distributor in the past, one can now sell one's CDs—or digital downloads—online, via a website or an outfit such as CD Baby. Again, huge.
So why do I try so hard to avoid music business people? Because the music business has an astoundingly high number of slimeballs and wannabes in it. The slimeballs exploit the artist, and the wannabes love to talk big and don't deliver and waste the artist's time and energy. Sour grapes? You bet. I've recorded albums on labels other than my own, and I've had music book publishing deals with major publishers, and I've had CD distributing deals with CD distributors, and these have been mostly miserable experiences. The labels don't pay on time (or sometimes at all), the publishers want to mess inordinately with your book and don't pay on time (or sometimes at all), and the distributors talk big and don't deliver what was promised (and, I almost forgot, don't pay on time--or sometimes at all). This is why I produce and publish my own materials: I get my own way 100% of the time, for better or for worse, and I never have that lousy ripped-off feeling. There are, fortunately, good players in the business: Minnesota Public Radio and A Prairie Home Companion have always been great outfits to record for, and, as a publisher, Colin Bay, who now runs Mel Bay Publications, has an excellent reputation with his writers. And he answers his phone.
Back to current technology: Imagine how liberating these developments are! The digital age has knocked the music industry on its big fat arrogant cushy butt and made it possible for anyone to record, manufacture and distribute anything they want. Exhilarating? Heck yeah.
So how do I do these things? I've recorded five albums on my computer, using—again—a good mike and a USB interface, and my last six have been recorded on a Tascam unit the size of a bible, on which I also mix, master and produce wave files. I USB them to my computer, burn a CD and take it to the manufacturer along with cover artwork done by my designer. Studio pressure and expense are vaporized. I go to my basement studio and, if the muse doesn't hit, I do something else and return to my studio later. I have designed my own CDs, but my last seven have been done by a professional graphic designer with whom I barter guitar lessons.
As to manufacture of these CDs, there are a number of companies available, which makes this a very competitive business, which is good for us musicians. I use a company in Minneapolis, Mn. I do small runs—usually 250-500 units. They burn and silkscreen the CD, print and insert a four-color booklet and shrink wrap the CD, all for about 3.50 per unit. The process takes a week, and they deliver them to my door.
The final issue, then, is distribution, and here I differ from most musicians. Generally, musicians want to distribute their CDs as far and wide as possible. They will send out sometimes hundreds of copies to radio stations, they will use services such as Amazon and CD Baby, they will sell the digital files through iTunes and the like. I don't do any of this. I send copies of my CDs to a few radio stations which I know will play them, and to Garrison Keillor, who is a friend and who has me on his show regularly. And that's it.
Don't get me wrong, I like selling CDs; I just don't want to spend time trying to promote them. And I don't generally use them to solicit work, because I don't solicit work. I don't try to put them in big stores because I then run into the business people I was talking about earlier, and here's the way that process works: you take your CD in and give it to their buyer, and they say they'll listen to it. You then call them a week later and they explain that they've been too busy to listen to your CD but that once they get over their busy-ness they will listen. The assumption at that point is that you will call over and over again until they find time to listen and pass judgment. This is the same procedure as for trying to get gigs, and it's why I don't do either. It is an undignified process that is an insult to the artist and aggrandizes the business person without any merit whatsoever. In short, it stinks, and I want nothing to do with it.
And in case you think this is just my curmudgeonliness showing itself, ask any professional performer if that's not the way it is. This arrogance pervades the music industry. I read an article about Austin's South by Southwest Festival in which a booker was quoted as saying that she could listen to four bars of a band playing and know if they worthy of being booked by her. Juxtapose that appalling cheek with the plight of bands so desperate to be discovered that they'll pile into a van and drive across the country for a chance to play a single late-night set at a venue that's near, but not part of the Festival. Fortunately, I'm not interested in being much more discovered than I already am, and I've been around long enough that I don't have to solicit work; my phone rings often enough to keep me satisfied.
And as to distributorship, I'm not too concerned about selling CDs in chain stores around the country. The assumption, if you're distributed nationally, is that you'll tour nationally to support the CD, and I don't want to tour on a regular basis. And if I don't tour I'm not a big enough name to be recognized in, say, Cleveland. So I'm content to sell my CDs on my website, at gigs, at the Homestead Pickin' Parlor (which treats artists really well), at my local food coop, and at music camps at which I teach. Could I sell twenty times more CDs using other means? Of course, but the aggravation attendant to those means is not worth it. If a store approaches me, I sell them some CDs at wholesale, but otherwise, I just refuse to invest time and psychic energy in a mechanism that is so disrespectful to musicians.
So then why do I do CDs, if I make so few at a time and am so unambitious in their distribution?
DRIPPY ANSWER ALERT: For the art. Seriously. To leave a legacy of what I've spent my life doing. These CDs are of critical importance to me artistically and emotionally. Every single word on and in them, and every single note is husbanded by me. The design, while done by my friend, is vetted by me. I put lyric booklets in the CDs that are laid out exactly as I want them. I pride myself in the absence (almost) of typos and other errata. HACKNEYED METAPHOR ALERT: They are my children.
Oh, and finally, a gentle note to civilians regarding CDs: Once a month or more, someone comes up to me and says, “I LOVE your new CD. I burned a copy for my aunt, and a copy for my brother, and a copy for my nephew, and a copy for. . .” This is a real no-no in the musician world. The eleven dollars profit I make on a CD sale goes to research and development (i.e., writing and recording), producing CDs, traveling to gigs and paying the rent, as it were. I know and accept that most people burn CDs, but don't tell the artist whose CD you're burning that you're doing it. When this happens to me, I usually express my appreciation for their support, and then politely and tactfully explain that they're ripping me off, however unintentionally. Invariably, their reaction shows that this point of view hadn't occurred to them.
Until the era of digital music started big time in—let's call it 1996—musicians were beholden to recording studios and record labels if they wanted to release an album. This was not a good situation, for several reasons: recording studios were expensive, albums (i.e. vinyl) had to be manufactured in multiples of a thousand, and record labels were infested with music business people--not my favorite demographic.
The home recording/digital era changed all of that, and all of the changes were for the better as regards the musician. Today, using a good microphone and any of a number of digital recording devices and software, one can, wherever and whenever one wants to, record an album that matches that of a studio in technical quality (Please note that this is my opinion). Also, CD duplicators can and will create CDs in numbers far smaller than a thousand. So the big change that has happened in the last fifteen years is that we musicians can do our own recording and release our own CDs as independently of music business people as we choose. This is huge.
Another issue for musicians is that of distributorship: how does one get one's albums to one's fans? Again thanks to the digital age, there are options that did not exist before. Where one had to go through a label and/or a distributor in the past, one can now sell one's CDs—or digital downloads—online, via a website or an outfit such as CD Baby. Again, huge.
So why do I try so hard to avoid music business people? Because the music business has an astoundingly high number of slimeballs and wannabes in it. The slimeballs exploit the artist, and the wannabes love to talk big and don't deliver and waste the artist's time and energy. Sour grapes? You bet. I've recorded albums on labels other than my own, and I've had music book publishing deals with major publishers, and I've had CD distributing deals with CD distributors, and these have been mostly miserable experiences. The labels don't pay on time (or sometimes at all), the publishers want to mess inordinately with your book and don't pay on time (or sometimes at all), and the distributors talk big and don't deliver what was promised (and, I almost forgot, don't pay on time--or sometimes at all). This is why I produce and publish my own materials: I get my own way 100% of the time, for better or for worse, and I never have that lousy ripped-off feeling. There are, fortunately, good players in the business: Minnesota Public Radio and A Prairie Home Companion have always been great outfits to record for, and, as a publisher, Colin Bay, who now runs Mel Bay Publications, has an excellent reputation with his writers. And he answers his phone.
Back to current technology: Imagine how liberating these developments are! The digital age has knocked the music industry on its big fat arrogant cushy butt and made it possible for anyone to record, manufacture and distribute anything they want. Exhilarating? Heck yeah.
So how do I do these things? I've recorded five albums on my computer, using—again—a good mike and a USB interface, and my last six have been recorded on a Tascam unit the size of a bible, on which I also mix, master and produce wave files. I USB them to my computer, burn a CD and take it to the manufacturer along with cover artwork done by my designer. Studio pressure and expense are vaporized. I go to my basement studio and, if the muse doesn't hit, I do something else and return to my studio later. I have designed my own CDs, but my last seven have been done by a professional graphic designer with whom I barter guitar lessons.
As to manufacture of these CDs, there are a number of companies available, which makes this a very competitive business, which is good for us musicians. I use a company in Minneapolis, Mn. I do small runs—usually 250-500 units. They burn and silkscreen the CD, print and insert a four-color booklet and shrink wrap the CD, all for about 3.50 per unit. The process takes a week, and they deliver them to my door.
The final issue, then, is distribution, and here I differ from most musicians. Generally, musicians want to distribute their CDs as far and wide as possible. They will send out sometimes hundreds of copies to radio stations, they will use services such as Amazon and CD Baby, they will sell the digital files through iTunes and the like. I don't do any of this. I send copies of my CDs to a few radio stations which I know will play them, and to Garrison Keillor, who is a friend and who has me on his show regularly. And that's it.
Don't get me wrong, I like selling CDs; I just don't want to spend time trying to promote them. And I don't generally use them to solicit work, because I don't solicit work. I don't try to put them in big stores because I then run into the business people I was talking about earlier, and here's the way that process works: you take your CD in and give it to their buyer, and they say they'll listen to it. You then call them a week later and they explain that they've been too busy to listen to your CD but that once they get over their busy-ness they will listen. The assumption at that point is that you will call over and over again until they find time to listen and pass judgment. This is the same procedure as for trying to get gigs, and it's why I don't do either. It is an undignified process that is an insult to the artist and aggrandizes the business person without any merit whatsoever. In short, it stinks, and I want nothing to do with it.
And in case you think this is just my curmudgeonliness showing itself, ask any professional performer if that's not the way it is. This arrogance pervades the music industry. I read an article about Austin's South by Southwest Festival in which a booker was quoted as saying that she could listen to four bars of a band playing and know if they worthy of being booked by her. Juxtapose that appalling cheek with the plight of bands so desperate to be discovered that they'll pile into a van and drive across the country for a chance to play a single late-night set at a venue that's near, but not part of the Festival. Fortunately, I'm not interested in being much more discovered than I already am, and I've been around long enough that I don't have to solicit work; my phone rings often enough to keep me satisfied.
And as to distributorship, I'm not too concerned about selling CDs in chain stores around the country. The assumption, if you're distributed nationally, is that you'll tour nationally to support the CD, and I don't want to tour on a regular basis. And if I don't tour I'm not a big enough name to be recognized in, say, Cleveland. So I'm content to sell my CDs on my website, at gigs, at the Homestead Pickin' Parlor (which treats artists really well), at my local food coop, and at music camps at which I teach. Could I sell twenty times more CDs using other means? Of course, but the aggravation attendant to those means is not worth it. If a store approaches me, I sell them some CDs at wholesale, but otherwise, I just refuse to invest time and psychic energy in a mechanism that is so disrespectful to musicians.
So then why do I do CDs, if I make so few at a time and am so unambitious in their distribution?
DRIPPY ANSWER ALERT: For the art. Seriously. To leave a legacy of what I've spent my life doing. These CDs are of critical importance to me artistically and emotionally. Every single word on and in them, and every single note is husbanded by me. The design, while done by my friend, is vetted by me. I put lyric booklets in the CDs that are laid out exactly as I want them. I pride myself in the absence (almost) of typos and other errata. HACKNEYED METAPHOR ALERT: They are my children.
Oh, and finally, a gentle note to civilians regarding CDs: Once a month or more, someone comes up to me and says, “I LOVE your new CD. I burned a copy for my aunt, and a copy for my brother, and a copy for my nephew, and a copy for. . .” This is a real no-no in the musician world. The eleven dollars profit I make on a CD sale goes to research and development (i.e., writing and recording), producing CDs, traveling to gigs and paying the rent, as it were. I know and accept that most people burn CDs, but don't tell the artist whose CD you're burning that you're doing it. When this happens to me, I usually express my appreciation for their support, and then politely and tactfully explain that they're ripping me off, however unintentionally. Invariably, their reaction shows that this point of view hadn't occurred to them.
