^not to be rude or anything, but if one can do something as artful as making music, why can't one design the sleeve too? or, plan to have a friend do it. i mean, it's a two way thing. the band gets a cool sleeve, the designer gets recognition, both sides happy. a step forward for both! maybe someone has a better idea.

umm, why not follow up with the essential part of all now... copyrights and the like? i mean, being a musician u have to know ur rights and what to do with it. u know, like the one i usually see in the sleeve, with funny name like "board stiff music", "blood onion music"... what are they for?

This is a brilliant thread, thanks. :thumb:

I say again: something on doing live shows/gigs, maybe?

[QUOTE=XemoXmoshXpitX]I say again: something on doing live shows/gigs, maybe?[/QUOTE]
123

3,000th post :eek:

What aspects of gigging in particular?

how about stuff like choosing your setlist and renting gear. What to do if the crowd isnt into you, what to do when you mess up, how to keep the gig alive etc

[QUOTE=Licketysplit]how about stuff like choosing your setlist and renting gear. What to do if the crowd isnt into you, what to do when you mess up, how to keep the gig alive etc[/QUOTE]
And maybe some tips on how to make a performance interesting?

Like um. Can't really explain what I mean.

What to do and what not to do? How to get the crowd into it? How to look alive on stage? How to create energy? How to make the show memorable? etc...

[QUOTE=XemoXmoshXpitX]What to do and what not to do? How to get the crowd into it? How to look alive on stage? How to create energy? How to make the show memorable? etc...[/QUOTE]
He put it into much better words than I ever could.

dam straight

[QUOTE=XemoXmoshXpitX]What to do and what not to do? How to get the crowd into it? How to look alive on stage? How to create energy? How to make the show memorable? etc...[/QUOTE]

Ok I'll go into it, Have I addressed Selling music online on mp3 sites yet? If I haven't I can't believe it, and I shall do that too, I feel its a very important issue when it comes to unsigned bands.

who cares, just give a lesson on wut moshpit said:thumb:

[now... all of that is super useful. if only i had a freakin' band to join.]

no, i don't believe you did the selling mp3 thing.

dude this is gonna be so helpful when my band starts gigging.

my friends band got ripped, £400 gb in the best studio in the UK (apparently) and they came out with half an album without mixing and no profit. a loss of around £300 altogether. and there only 15 lol

why didn't they just spend 100 bucks on a good sound card, and hook it up to one of yallz computer?

^^ thats what we're doing for our first e.p. our guitarist has a bit of a recording studio set up in his room (not much, just some inputs into his computer and a audio package), but its still does the job. the only thing we need are some drum mics.

[QUOTE=The Spliggity Splot]why didn't they just spend 100 bucks on a good sound card, and hook it up to one of yallz computer?[/QUOTE]

Because the sound engineer at the studio knows what he is doing better, he has more experience and equipment to call upon, he knows whether its best to punch in or record straight, he knows how much reverb will get you the CD sound you want e.t.c.

If you know about music tech and have a proper set up, mixer, multitrack, cassete recorder for mixdown, reverb unit e.t.c., then you can probably go for it, but your really cutting off your opertunities by only hooking up to a computer.

Either way though, I can recommend books that focus on specificly the basics of recording, i.e how far should the mic be, how should I record bass, what about pops on the mic? e.t.c.

[QUOTE]
my friends band got ripped, £400 gb in the best studio in the UK (apparently) and they came out with half an album without mixing and no profit. a loss of around £300 altogether. and there only 15 lol[/QUOTE]

That is a hell of a lot to pay for an album, we're having difficulty deciding how to record our e.p. but at the moment we may be looking to use a studio, for the 5 tracks it's going to set us back £70-90, so for a 12 track album we'd be looking at maybe £200.

If it was their first album, it's probably best just seeking out another studio (if you cannot take legal action) and getting a cheaper deal, I suppose from the event they have learned how sweet the music industry is.

[QUOTE]
no, i don't believe you did the selling mp3 thing.[/QUOTE]

Right I'll do the next issue on more gig stuff, and that debate.

Excellent!

I'm gonna contribute my two cents worth is no one minds...
For gigging the important thing is to keep going, no one knows you screwed up unless you say so. Also if equipment breaks down or somthing like that, try to make it into a joke or something cool. At my bands most recent gig our guitarist broke a string. Normally this would be a disaster and would totally ruin the vibe, but instead our guitarist proceeded to rip the string the rest of the way off with his teeth. The crowd went wild.
If you have good energy and you keep going through everything then theres not much bad that can happen.

Cool, that's probably gonna come in useful someday. Thanks.

Just read the thread. Very, very nice. Keep 'em coming! :thumb:

don't mean to be rude but, where's the threadstarter? hasn't been here for days... i hope it's b'cos something great is going for his band!

[QUOTE=doggonit]don't mean to be rude but, where's the threadstarter? hasn't been here for days... i hope it's b'cos something great is going for his band![/QUOTE]

Nah, I'm just ill, possible glandular fever, however, with any luck, it will just be something short term, we have a gig on the 8th so with any luck my throat will have cleared up by then.

[QUOTE=KKKKKocaine]Nah, I'm just ill, possible glandular fever, however, with any luck, it will just be something short term, we have a gig on the 8th so with any luck my throat will have cleared up by then.[/QUOTE]
Aww. Poor Mr. K. Hope it clears up in time.

get well soon dude. u know we love u, haha! btw, u do only vocals? play any instruments?

You can find out by reading his extensive biography. I've posted the whole thing here for you:

Biography:
I drum

:p lol - yeah, we love ya! Hope you're feelin better. :thumb:

Great stuff buddy, a really good read.

New Article tommorrow, it's not glandular fever, just turns out to be a nasty cold, a learning experience though, because I've never had one before.

If anyone wants, I'll briefly touch upon copyright, however, I won't tell you how to do it, I'll explain it's complexities (i.e. the difference in country laws, Russia has practicly no copyright protection)

EDIT: I do vocals and drums, though not at the same time. I'm also learning to use DJ decks, at which point my band will end and I will put "Mixmaster" before my name and team up with a blonde german woman called, Gretal and we will work the dance scene.

mixmaster kocaine, nice :cool:

New Issue! :eek:

More Gigs

You're on the stage, the sound engineer just gave you the thumbs up, the crowd is gazing up expectantly at the band, waiting for the opening chord of your hit.
Unfortunately, no-one is perfect, mistakes happen, strings break, vocals get forgotten, people trip, things explode, it's all in a days work.
So how do you deal with mistakes?
Well it depends, you should have spares for most items at hand anyhow.
Guitar strings are one of the most common mistakes, the string breaks, and all too often, the guitarist just stops, the rest of the band turn around and watch, wondering why he stopped, the song falls apart.
This is bad.

What should happen?
Well the guitarist should carry on playing, it is likely he can work around the broken string, it may not sound perfect, but to be honest, unless your playing MTV unplugged, no-ones going to know.

Just battle on till the end of the song, either quickly putting on a new string (you did remember to bring the spare strings right?), or you can switch guitars (you did remember to bring two right?)

All in all though, the key is to do it fast, once you have the crowd in your grasp, you don't want to let them go, making them wait around along time will make them antsy.
What can you do to fill the breaks in between "breakage"?
Telling jokes is a classic, unfortunately, many people do it wrong, the joke needs to be funny to start with, you also need to be calm enough to tell it slowly and clearly, otherwise no-one will ever hear.
Or you could take the time to talk about an upcoming video or album, or the merch stand, or even thank the other bands and the crowd for coming.

Do anything you can to maintain the crowds attention, although be wary of getting the bassist and drummer to jam, as the guitarist is trying to tune up.

If an amp breaks, or a mic breaks e.t.c., carry on, the person with the broken equipment can stop whilst they get it sorted (preferably within 20 seconds), the rest of the band has to continue however.
Talk to the other bands before going on, try and have some contingency plans sorted out and prehaps have a few small amps lying around the stage ready for such an event, 2 mic's up per vocalist e.t.c.


Forgetting Lyrics?
Well the show must go on, you have a few choices depending on the music you play and the acoustic enviroment.

1) If the musical situation is appropriate, scream anything.
2) Just sing, Not any words, just things such 'aah', once again this is an musical situation that may not apply to all, a grindcore band probably can't get away with this mid verse
3) Stop and go from the lines you do know, this is probably the worst as everytime you stop it's apparant you forgot something, but if you keep calm, smile and then take the next line, you'll get away with it.

See the recurring trend here?
Carry on, you'll look more professional, and the crowd won't get agitated.
Keep a cool head, plan ahead for these events, and keep smiling no matter what.

If the crowd isn't into you, there isn't too much you can do but smile and bear it, most likely you've done something musically that they don't approve of, or they've checked you out before and didn't like you.
Be as nice about it as possible, if someone hurls abuse at you, take it well, if you start screaming then the crowd have another reason to get aggressive.

An example,
I was at a gig, it was an independant record label all dayer, (In at the deep end if anyone must know).
One band came on, "Bas[B]t[/B]ards Trained by Bas[B]t[/B]ards", I made the comment to my friend that the drummer looked like a womble, which was fairly true, but in that funny sort of way.

Now, the guitarist had a redshirt, red hair, and a red guitar, however he had demin trousers.
Halfway through the set, a drunken idiot shouted "You like the colour red don't you, pity you missed out on the trousers mate"

The guitarist looked up, he was obviously ready to kick the guys ***, but instead he smiled and said "You're colour blind, my jeans are red, the guitar is blue and so is my shirt"

The vocalist then piped in straight after, with the punchline "and his hair isn't even their"

This amused the crowd, and whilst it was not the most witty intelligent counter argument, it was fast paced, shut the shouter up, and kept the crowd happy, the situation had been difused, whilst the band were not fantastic (I preferred the political message they inferred rather than the music), the crowd respected them for keeping their cool.

Which is more than could be said for the shouters band, it was apparant he had other things in mind, the band he had verbally attacked had put a banner up behind them and forgotten to take it down.
The shouter stood on a drum stool (yes, he was that short) and tore it down, damaging the banner, he then just left it, not bothering to hand it over to the other band.
As a result of his attitude, he didn't get on well with the crowd, he repeatedly threatened members, and when a 5ft5 drunkard threatens 18 year olds, it is laughable.

I'm glad to report that his band is not signed to In At The Deep End Records.
But this is just an example, of crowd management.

Not only are these key factors in pleasing the crowd, but your set list is, they need to be designed to give your new fans a break, don't put your 3 210bpm songs after each other, put slower songs inbetween every couple of fast songs, the crowd can't headbang continually, also structure songs based on the musicians.

If song 1 has a ripping guitar solo, make the next song fairly easy going on the guitarist.
Don't just throw down your songs, think about them before hand, punctuate the set list with your more catchy songs instead of putting 4 normal songs, and the 5 masterpeices together, it will create the illusion to the crowd that all your songs are catchy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "You only have 4 good songs", it's just some songs are more catchy than others the first time round.
It's useually the melodicly catchy ones rather than the lyricly catchy ones at live gigs.
Accomodate for this too.


Getting the crowd excited is a matter of luck, chances are, most of them are tapping their feet and digging you, thinking "if only a few people would start a pit"
I've gone into methods of getting them excited, but often it requires incentives, like "If you dance your asses off you get a free cd"
You need to try and luck out by getting 5 people to walk forwards, which will trigger another few who will trigger more, the crowd mentallity.
It's hit or miss, if the crowd aren't coming forwards at all, then you must play as cleany as you can, if they won't dance, your going to make them listen, give them the best you've got.

MP3's?

Well, it's a fact, MP3 sales hit over 1 million last year, thats alot of people considering fellows like me who slander it so often.
I read an article in music tech magazine about the subject, one user of an mp3 buying system expressed his glee at just buying anything that looked nice, and paying next to nothing for it.

And considering it's sales, it's looking rather popular.

Is it for unsigned bands though?

Unfortunately, I'd have to liken it to trying to restring your guitar by setting the fretboard on fire.

1) Most distributers want you to pay money for it.
2) Have we all seen the MP3 selling prices? From American sites you can get them for about the equivilent of 50p, thats a 12 track album for £6.
3) You need to be known of for it to work.

Now we shall go into more detail.

1- This makes it risky, your paying money for a venture that may not work out.
Something you cannot afford to do as a band.
The £40 or so set up fee could go towards something more likely to work.

2- You will end up undercutting yourself, in some cases you may be offering an album for £12 and the album worth of mp3s for £6
Cd's are an unsigned bands best friend, theres still a fair bit of distrust against mp3 services held by people like me.
(Things like, its not the same as a real cd, computer errors e.t.c.)
You do need the extra money from real CD's, its no good having 200 fans in a distant town but no means to get to them.

3- You can't just stick MP3's up there and hope people will buy, you need people to come on the site and search for your band randomly, they need to know about your band, you need to promote your *** off, and most services include the what seems mandator "Give me £50 and you can be on the front page for a day!"


In short, MP3 services are best left to the bigger bands.
On the subject of MP3's, if you have an e.p. or album coming out, put a few tracks up.

For an e.p., prehaps one full track (make it catchy) and two 30 second samples from other tracks.
(if you give them 3 free tracks, where is the incentive to buy just for track 4?)

An album, put 3 full tracks up, and maybe 4 30 second samples.

Make it easy to buy though, put "email me to buy cd", isn't a good option, many people are still skeptical about buying on the net and few will transfer money over it in that fashion.
There are a few other methods though.

1) Get a professional to design you a webcart (expensive)
2) Paypal (I can't account for this myself, but I've heard bad things about it)
3) A free cart service, there are a few good ones out there.
4) For people in the UK, I think it is Natwest, they are creating something to rival paypal.

Don't forget to price sensibly as well, e.p.'s for new bands should be around £2-£3, just enough to cover recording costs in most cases.

Albums, around £7-£9

Next Issue; Me dunnoes, Suggestions?

CDBaby.com seems like a good fix for the issue of people in another location wanting to buy a CD but not knowing how. It's something like $40 or so to sign up, you send them five cds, they review them, make samples, (you specifiy how long the samples are,) and set up a page for you on their website. They keep about $3 of each CD. So, you could probably put a demo CD on there for $4...not much for profit, but it'll help spread the word. It seems the average price of a cd on CDBaby is around $10-$12.

Fantastic!

Paypal charges quite a lot for sellers, but is free for buyers, and very safe and reliable.

i saw a black metal band called blackiris at 'the shed' in leister last saturday, they rules, best band there by far, but because it was a small venue almost no one was dancing/moshing ect. the singer and guitarist shouted abuse 2 the crowd. not a good vibe at all... ruined the whole set for me

One of the best issues yet! How bout doing something on ways to collect money, or how to persuade people to donate? PA systems aren't cheap nowadays.

I was looking around on the net and found this interesting gem.
[url]http://www.music-utopia.com/faq.html#1[/url]
It appears to be CD distrobution service.

However, they have no set up fee, and take £3/$3 from each CD, they host a small site for you with 2, 2 minute clips.
They screen music to make sure it is to their tastes, but it might be worth a little checking out, if your right for them, you probably don't have too much to lose.
They also ship to Canada, US, the UK and Europe.

They still appear to be a small site, with only a few bands using it, but it could be a very effective method of circumnavigating nasty HTML code, look at it this way, you put a link to your cd in their store on your site, and you don't have to pay for setting up shopping trolleys e.t.c.

presenting, kocaine and gretel of mixmaster! *claps*

Maybe you should just add a CD buying section to your website. If someone is into you, that's generally the first place they go. It might not look as professional, but it will sell you CDs.

not neccessarily, unfortunately.