Stupot

We often record bands live in our main room. Our approach is to mike up all the cabs with two mics each and then mic up kick and snare along with a couple of overheads. I've found that overdubbing the vocals separately is best too. It lets the back line let rip without worrying about spill on the vox mic. We've also recoded live to our studer J37. It's a 2 inch tape recorder, ex abbey road. Only 4 tracks but it sounds fat and warm. Sadly, its power supply caught fire but we're sourcing a replacement supply. I use it mostly to master. It gives digital recordings real analogue warmth and power.

Epson and Hewlett Packard both do printers that will print CDs. Both around the 65 mark.

Tall poppy syndrome again.

We can also provide CDRs with all the trimmings including a wrap here in the studio if you need low runs but we can't do them any cheaper than 2 each at present. Until we get a stand alone duplicator anyway. However, artwork design is free.

I can do you 500 glass mastered, pressed not CDR, CDs with full colour on body, 4 page colour booklet, tray liner, shrink wrapped AND barcoded for about 707 ish. PM if interested. And if your material needs mastering I can do that for you too.

From a personal and actually thought out perspective: Since the day that tape was invented, people have been pirating music by taping their mate's albums. It's been a fact of record label life from day 1. Did anyone really expect that people wouldn't share their music once it had evolved to digital downloads?!!? Come on! Yes it is theft. Yes it is a breach of any number of rights. But it's hardly on par with breaking into someone's house, raping their dog and lifting their stereo. All labels and distributors know this very well. It's the reason that legal music prices are so high. That's the real consequence of illegal downloads. It's the downloaders fault. Musicians know full well that they'll never make a living from music sales. All musicians' real income comes from live shows, radio/TV royalties, Ad placement and public appearances for the over hyped ones. Also despite what the bedroom engineers and Sandi Thom says, high quality recordings cost money to make and a high end studio to do it in. Don't bother arguing this point-heard it all before. So the big labels simply have to attack p2p. They have no choice. One major consequence of cheap digital recording gear is that the demo market, which sustained small to medium sized studios has collapsed with the result that many studios have simply shut up shop. Is this a fault of p2p? Not at all. I think the current knee jerk reaction won't last. The big labels and players will still have the clout and the money to get their product way ahead of the rest of us. It's radio play that makes money and until that playing field is leveled, independent labels and acts won't get any more of a look in than we've had to date.

Exactly. It's always a simplistic "fuck the corporate, profiteering giant arguement" that some people think gives them the right to effectively rob musicians of their incomes. Most labels (like mine) are small indie outfits trying to give artists an outlet for their music. We structure things to give our acts at least 50% of retail and we absorb the cost of recording, CD manufacture, royalty collection and digital aggregation. Hardly profiteering. I guess we just deserve to be ripped off.

The Unforgiven. LiveStrong. Co Jo Mary.

They do very nice tube and ribbon versions too.

I rarely pick up anything other than a sontronics orpheus to record vocals. It costs about 250 these days, but sounds like a neumann, has more features than a neumann and works on just about everybody's voice as well as kick drums and guitars. If you run it through a decent tube pre amp, it warms up nicely too.

It doesn't matter what the format is, if you're releasing recorded music then you're a record label. The way CD sales are plummeting, it won't be terribly long before selling physical product will be a thing of the past and reduced to specialist niche retailers. Some deranged folk will tell you that you're not a record label if you're not a member of MCPS, PRS, PPL, and AIM. Ignore. While it's useful in terms of royalties and income flow to be a member of these things, it's not required to be a record label. Good luck with your label and if you need any help or support, drop me a PM.

Major record companies are in the business to make money. It's a business, they have shareholders. Their goal is to come up with a tune and an image from an act that will persuade the average 13 year old to part with their pocket money and so get the tune/act into the charts and on radio 1. Believe me there is definitely an art in achieving this. You don't have to like it, it's just the way they do things. Check out the back pages of "The Stage" and you'll see where the next Sugarbabes are coming from. " Four outgoing females req'd for musical project. 18-22 yrs old. PO Box 666". The problem most people make is to confuse the entertainment industry with the music industry. The music industry makes new music of all kinds from folk to jazz, from pop to metal and some of it is great some of it crap. They are just catering to their markets. The entertainment industry which includes pro cover bands, cabaret acts, solo singers, comedians, magicians ect exists to bring entertainment to the masses at functions, holiday camps, weddings, casinos and bingo halls (where I'm playing on Friday night, God help me!!) Music industry acts very often never have to play live and if they do, play for about 1 hour and have a guaranteed audience which will be whipped up to adore them. Entertainment industry acts often play for up to 4 hours to a cold audience that they have to win over and keep happy (and therefore in the venue drinking) and this audience can very often be hostile. If you're crap-you die, then you get less work, then you starve. It's a skilled trade and not for everybody but don't confuse the two. I'm always at a loss why some people care so much anyway.

Absolutely. I think you'd have to consider Joe Strummer a working musican and a creative. one. As I pointed out earlier, thousands of people a year get to hear my original music and buy it as a result of the many functions I play. In my opinion that's worth having to play "Brown Eyed Fucking Girl" 300 times a year!

I see where you're coming from and yes the business side of things can be a pain. There are lots of sharks out there as I found out to my cost in the days (many moons ago) when I was a young punk rocker (the first time round that is, not today's pseudo punk). Because of my negative experiences, I run my enterprises in an ethical manner ( as anyone who knows me will tell you). For instance, when we publish anyones' music, the artist pays us nothing unless we make them money. We routinely supply our acts with CDs for which they pay nothing until they've sold them and as I said earlier, our studio is priced incredibly cheaply. Incidentally, studio time is expensive nornally because on start up, most studios have to borrow heavily to equip to a good standard. I was able to equip because I sold one of my songs to a US marketing company for use in a TV ad about depression. I don't therefore have a lot of debt to cover, just the studio overheads. I also don't have to rely on studio income because I'm in one of Scotland's busiest acts so I can pass on these benefits to people who have limited funds for recording rather than profiteering. The benefits of business combined with art in a sensible manner.

That's precisely why there are record companies and managers. The unpalatable truth, from your own point of view, is that all advances in music are driven by commercial releases and have been since the advent of recorded music and quite probably before. This may not seem fair to those musicians who don't make saleable music but it's the way of the world. I'm fairly sure that Joe Strummer, bless him, didn't work in Burger King either, so he used his music to keep himself alive and put a roof over his head. There is absolutely nothing wrong in doing this and it's extremely wrong headed to think so. If your music has a message, then that message should reach as many people as possible. So let's ask ourselves, will that message reach more people if you a) play it to a dozen people at an open mike night and never sell a single CD but give away a few dozen for free so you're out of pocket. or b) Have a huge commercial release and sell millions all over the world with your message reaching half the planet, thus earning you a good load of dosh which you don't have to spend on booze and cocaine but can put it to good use easing the burden of people whose lives are pretty shit, whilst allowing you to leave any wage slave job you happen to be doing and freeing your time to write even more poignant tunes, knowing you have the resources to get your message to the people who need to hear it. Bearing in mind that you don't have to sully your artistic talent by indulging in the sordid topic of coin because you can afford people to do that for you. X factor...now that's using music for twattish purposes.

Not at all. Playing music professionally is simply a job like any other. You provide a service and are paid a fee depending on the quality or desirability of that service. I make all of my income from music and also play for my own pleasure but I never let the two collide. I play from 200-300 gigs a year playing weddings, corporate events, functions and even pubs. Lots of crap covers but it's for the customers, who get what they pay for. It's a job. This income funds my own songwriting gives me the chance to play my own music to thousands of people a year who then buy my music. It also generates a useful income from PRS royalties as well. Being well paid for this lets me offer my studio for very low prices, because I firmly believe that there should be a facility available for young bands and artists to record to a high standard for a reasonable price, which is 100 per day. I run my record label and music publishing side of things in the same manner. PRS is awash with cash and the bands that are playing their own music are entitled to a share of that cash and we do it for them. (And we backdate the claims for 3 years!!) It's not selling out just good business practice.

Selling out is a phrase used entirely by amateurs and niche acts who have absolutely no chance of selling a record or getting paid for playing. It is never used in professional circles and is, frankly, rather akin to calling people who wear glasses, specky. Play for fun musicians are sometimes known to trot this meaningless phrase out, but, if you genuinely play for fun and really, truly don't care if you make money from music, then why throw this childish taunt at anyone else, because you shouldn't care if they do. Or does just a tenny weeny part of you hate the fact that other people achieve success and you haven't? Go on, be honest.

It was too. Hilarious.

Might have been that.

anything by the macdonald brothers.

I was told while training by a crusty old engineer you need 50 watts per body. I don't know what he based his advice on. I've always found that if you can get your tops above head height and angled down at about 15 degrees you need less oomph and get greater coverage.

It's possible for someone with a bit of experience to create good or even high quality recordings like that, but to make commercial quality requires high end mastering which really means high end outboards but on computers means waves suites which means big money and no, Ozone doesn't quite cut it, although it's good for the price. But if he's into lo fi then you're spot on.

Know what you mean. My desk's biggest bugbear is it's fiddly to set up the aux sends and returns as it's done through two different menus. Once it's set up, you can change the levels using the motorised faders by just pressing one button to switch the faders to the aux buss. It's not quite the same as having a yard long channel strip but not too bad all the same. I had to use a yamaha digital desk at a live gig once and it was horrendous.

My Sony DMX R100 comes pretty close to that ideal. 48 channels of dynamics and EQ. You have to press a touch screen to access the dynamics and EQ screens but once there it actually has real knobs to turn and real buttons to press! It has never crashed, but, on the other hand it lives in a nice clean studio and doesn't get carted around the country and abused by people who believe themselves to be sound engineers. I'd happily use it live and speaking to people who have, it appears to be reliable.

Elton John spends 50,000 a week on flowers, dresses up as an effette french aristocrat and bangs/is banged by David Furnish. Do you really think that's worth 3 pages of bandwidth?