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[ASFG]

Originally Posted by euanisacowboykiller

At risk of sounding patronising, I'd advise it's best to record a few songs and put them on myspace or the likes before asking for shows. If you see it from a promoter's perspective, it's a bit of a risk putting on a band that they've never heard. I mean, at least some dodgy recordings on an mp3 player would do, but if you can borrow someone's 8 track or do a session at the likes of the Foyer, even better.

Just a bit of advice.

I appreciate that. Thank you for taking the time out to offer it. What you’re saying certainly has some merit but from personal experience I think there are, as Original Spies says, alternative routes to explore which might be better.

I do think every band should make the effort to record a demo, and if it is of a high enough standard should put it online to garner interest. What I don’t subscribe to is the theory that any recording is better than no recording at all; if your approach to recording is half-assed, your band will come across as half-assed.

My personal feeling is that putting a bad recording online is the equivalent of playing a gig unrehearsed.

More specifically, I can't remember a single time when I had to go down the route of sending a demo to a promoter in order to get a gig at this level. It just doesn't happen - at least not to me. If a promoter specifically has a gig offer (or offers) for me and specifically requests to hear some of our work I will send him/her an mp3 of one our songs.

All this is presuming that the promoter really cares what the band sounds like anyway. I suspect many promoters would just be happy to find a band that could turn up on time, do what was asked of them, bring a decent crowd along and not piss about too much. Imagine that?

In summary, if you ARE a promoter, please PM me for details.

[milner]

Originally Posted by Chris

If you can afford to practice at Toms or Musical Vision you can afford to record a couple of tracks to listenable quality.

whats listenable quality?
I'd much rather hear something semi good than any old shit demo from toms that doesnt really give you an indication of the band.

[Chris]

Something that doesn't sound fucking dreadful. Admittedly, that's subjective.

[milner]

Originally Posted by Chris

Something that doesn't sound fucking dreadful. Admittedly, that's subjective.

So would you rather hear a rubbish version of a bands songs or would you rather wait till you heard something of a better quality?

[milner]

Originally Posted by ASFG

I appreciate that. Thank you for taking the time out to offer it. What you’re saying certainly has some merit but from personal experience I think there are, as Original Spies says, alternative routes to explore which might be better.

I do think every band should make the effort to record a demo, and if it is of a high enough standard should put it online to garner interest. What I don’t subscribe to is the theory that any recording is better than no recording at all; if your approach to recording is half-assed, your band will come across as half-assed.

My personal feeling is that putting a bad recording online is the equivalent of playing a gig unrehearsed.

More specifically, I can't remember a single time when I had to go down the route of sending a demo to a promoter in order to get a gig at this level. It just doesn't happen - at least not to me. If a promoter specifically has a gig offer (or offers) for me and specifically requests to hear some of our work I will send him/her an mp3 of one our songs.

All this is presuming that the promoter really cares what the band sounds like anyway. I suspect many promoters would just be happy to find a band that could turn up on time, do what was asked of them, bring a decent crowd along and not piss about too much. Imagine that?

In summary, if you ARE a promoter, please PM me for details.

I wish we all had the contacts you seem to have......

[Chris]

Originally Posted by milner

So would you rather hear a rubbish version of a bands songs or would you rather wait till you heard something of a better quality?

What I mean is something in the middle. If a band knows their songs and their sound then they should be able to get at least 1 or 2 of them recorded to a passable quality to put up on myspace (or call it Death Magnetic and get to #1 in the album charts). It doesn't have to be CD quality, just give a fair representation of the band's sound so that potential promoters and the gig going public will get a chance to decide if they're worth spending money on.

The songs on our myspace aren't great quality, but they'll do for the moment to give people an idea of what we sound like and they cost us less than £40 to record.

[milner]

Originally Posted by Chris

What I mean is something in the middle. If a band knows their songs and their sound then they should be able to get at least 1 or 2 of them recorded to a passable quality to put up on myspace (or call it Death Magnetic and get to #1 in the album charts). It doesn't have to be CD quality, just give a fair representation of the band's sound so that potential promoters and the gig going public will get a chance to decide if they're worth spending money on.

The songs on our myspace aren't great quality, but they'll do for the moment to give people an idea of what we sound like and they cost us less than £40 to record.

Getting a guitar sound for recording and for playing live is two different things tho. I do agree with you up to a point mind but i think your generalising it a bit too much. I'd much rather hear a decent version of a song rather than a shitty cheap version that could just put me off the band before ive really heard them. As for your recordings, you dont have any vocals, so what you paid for them doesnt really come into it as vocals usually take up a lot of the recording time.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by milner

As for your recordings, you dont have any vocals, so what you paid for them doesnt really come into it as vocals usually take up a lot of the recording time.

Fair point.

[milner]

Originally Posted by Chris

Fair point.

for what its worth tho, appart from a few out of tune guitars i quite like those songs you have up, good quality as well like you said.

[idol_wild]

Originally Posted by ASFG

I appreciate that. Thank you for taking the time out to offer it. What you’re saying certainly has some merit but from personal experience I think there are, as Original Spies says, alternative routes to explore which might be better.

I do think every band should make the effort to record a demo, and if it is of a high enough standard should put it online to garner interest. What I don’t subscribe to is the theory that any recording is better than no recording at all; if your approach to recording is half-assed, your band will come across as half-assed.

My personal feeling is that putting a bad recording online is the equivalent of playing a gig unrehearsed.

More specifically, I can't remember a single time when I had to go down the route of sending a demo to a promoter in order to get a gig at this level. It just doesn't happen - at least not to me. If a promoter specifically has a gig offer (or offers) for me and specifically requests to hear some of our work I will send him/her an mp3 of one our songs.

All this is presuming that the promoter really cares what the band sounds like anyway. I suspect many promoters would just be happy to find a band that could turn up on time, do what was asked of them, bring a decent crowd along and not piss about too much. Imagine that?

In summary, if you ARE a promoter, please PM me for details.

I do a spot of promotions and I am not going to make the effort of contacting the band/artist to find out what they sound like, when it is the band/artist that is looking for gigs. The most investigation I would ever do is type in a myspace address or click a link.

And if a promoter doesn't care what an artist or band sounds like then why are they promoting? If a promoter doesn't really care what you sound like then I suggest you're playing gigs for the wrong promoters.

I realise this post makes me sound really arrogant. It's not meant to, but it's the only way I have of articulating my point. I, personally, as a live music promoter, would never book a band if they didn't have recordings accessible online, unless I had seem them perform live before or they went to the trouble of contacting me to offer a CD or an MP3 of at least one or two songs.