Figuratively speaking...

I've been perplexed by the plethora of music "wannabes" that are claiming fame to their names and have no following and no exposure (like myself, except I don't carry that delusional ego).  I've also noticed a growing number of self-titled critics of music and the industry and noticed they have no experience in music whatsoever other than they listen to it (not even avidly at that).  These days that old saying really seems to ring true that "everyone's a critic".  Simultaneously, "they" criticize with no respect.

The superfluous wave of criticism got me stirred up.  I've been avidly participating in this industry for the better half of a decade semi-professionally at the very least.  With 2 published albums  (1, 2) I know the game well enough to have some say.  I bet I've worked harder at honing my craft and building my business than most of those self-claimed critics do at their day jobs (no offense).  Not to say that anyone working right now isn't working their butts off, but let's face it, a multitude of the work out there is a whole lot easier (at least mentally) than trying to build a brand and identity in music.  It's time consuming, relentless, and extremely iffy at best.  Music has a notorious reputation for being the "bad choice" as a career.  That reason is the primary reason why most musicians never move past hobby-stage.

I'm sure at some point in life everyone's at least touched a musical instrument - or if not, at least seen a band or someone perform live.  Any serious musician can attest to the classic case of parental annoyance if they were lucky enough to start at a young age: "Stop playing that and do your homework," education is more important, is it not?  In today's economic climate this might sound something more like "put down that instrument and get a real job already".   The musically talented will surely tell you it's still taken them years to develop any sort of sound.

But we all know this already, don't we?  we know some distant relative or friend of a friend; or perhaps a coworker's dorm-room mate's boyfriend's uncle's cat who was owned by a complete stranger that by day works at a local retail chain or some conglomerate fast food resturaunt (because let's face it, fast food chains are the last American business model still standing proud) and then leads a 2nd life by night playing shows whenever they can scrounge any sort of time free to find a place willing to let them go up in front of any audience to play.

Truthfully, how often do we go to shows? I'm willing to bet a majority of us out there have only been to maybe 2 or 3 concerts in a lifetime, 2-6 small coffee-house shows with a small-time band playing small-time songs wanting to sound as big and amazing as possible, in front of maybe 10+ crowd who's really just there for the friends who invited friends to come check out "Hey, it's that one band" and then pointing "look, it's (insert random acquaintance)" as the crowd just kind of lackadaisically sits there half-interested in wanting to get up and dance and half-daydreaming of being somewhere else. My guess is that somewhere else is with their other "cool" friends who went off to the bay area to go club-hopping and chugging alcoholic beverages like it's a last-man-standing contest.

Anyone who's attempted to do so has faced the multitude of obstacles: mental, emotional, physical, and financial, that come with trying to create a successful music career.  Let's start with Billy (completely random name for my hypothetical situation) here.  Billy's 23, fresh out of college with a degree in guess what?... Business Communications!  Sounds great, but his passion is music.  He's been playing guitar self-taught since he was 12.  Awesome!  Motivated guy...  He learned a few chops from playing along to Van Halen and got sucked into the hardcore scene before Emo kids took it over and trashed the place before leaving like it was someone else's house party and the neighbors just called the cops.

Billy Found a few friends who decided to pick up drums, bass guitar, and started jamming together on regular occasion.  They spend a few months learning a couple cover songs and decide to be bold and write a few of their own.  Already 4 months in and they're all feeling confident, and Billy wants to take it to the next level.  Before they can go anywhere, the band needs a frontman (also commonly known as a singer).  Everyone else is too afraid to step up so Billy takes the limelight and grabs a mic.  The first sounds of this band with vocals are... less than pleasant.

Alright, Billy's hopes are a little rattled but he can shake it off; so singing isn't as easy as belting it out into the microphone.  He spends more time practicing vocals and guitar together and memorizing their new material whenever the band can't get together to practice. Which is usually 1-2 times a week for a few hours a day at most, since everyone has part time jobs and that awful jazz called bills.  After another month (that makes 5 in total) they are playing confidently in their garage for the neighbors to hear (with the occasional call to the cops about the noise of course).  Billy and the band's lucky day just happens to be now because there's a battle of the bands at the new local music shop that just opened up in town.  Things are looking great, opportunity's-a-knockin'!  Billy signs up the band and has one more month to get everything dialed in.

Their first time on stage at 6 months in, and everyone's got jitters and they rush through their material with anything but finesse.  It's alright though, people in the audience liked them enough to want to hear more.  Billy has the idea that the band should get serious, see's the audience reaction and wants to make the next step...  I bet you all right now Billy is only thinking one thing in his head... "How cool is this!?"

Folks, this might seem easy, but it's tough.  You know why? We haven't even started yet.  Billy doesn't have the first clue about building a business.  Business?!?!  What am I talking about?  This is music!  This is going on stage and performing killer tunes and getting noticed and signing to huge labels and making tons of money and making awesome records that sell like Ihop's pancakes on Sunday after church!  To everyone who just agreed with that sentence, close this page, go back to looking up porn (guys) or oogling at the latest pictures of Channing Tatum (girls) and get some rest, you've got a long day of work ahead of you at your day job tomorrow, which I highly suggest you keep.

So, having just offended everyone out there by now, you can guess that jaded view of the music industry is pretty old, but it's still true to a lot of people.  Because they don't know what exactly goes on behind those closed doors they assume it's magic.  So, just what goes into the business of music?  We all think we know the answer, and it should be simple enough right?  You're a band/artist and you perform in front of people, make money, produce cd's and gain lots of exposure... right?  That sentence is such a gross underestimation of just how complex the whole process can be.

First off, just how does a band go from local garage band to being a professional band?  That's easy to answer, not so easy to do.  Billy's band got lucky, and started gaining exposure the moment they played at a battle of the bands contest.  Most bands out there don't start that way.  In fact, most of them started in high school playing gigs at festivals, markets; wherever they could get a PA system and someone willing and desperate enough to put an act in front of any audience (usually for free for both).  After all, Billy and the band only make enough money at their jobs to save up for the occassional new set of strings, drum-heads, and a couple cables.  Billy took the extra effort to save up for a small practice PA system to get the vocals into the practice sessions.  Now that's taking initiative.  But let's add up just how much would be spent to create this band so far:

• Starter Bass: $180
• Bass Amp for practice and gigs: $650
• An instrument cable: $15
• Sturdy strap: $25
• Extra set of Bass strings for backup: $8
• A Bassist needs some picks for certain songs right?:  $4
• Bassist needs a care kit: $23
• Gig bag for instrument as well: $30
• Total for the bassist = Roughly about $1,030 after tax

___

• Decent quality guitar for the frontman: $700
• Guitar amp with all the cool bells and whistles: $665
• Instrument cable: $15
• Guitarist needs some picks too:  $4
• Definitely needs a stylish strap: $20
• That amp needs a speaker cable: $5
• Definitely needs some good guitar strings for shredding: $12
• Guitarist needs an instrument care kit: $23
• Gig bag for the instrument of course: $15
• Total for the guitarist = roughly $1,610 after tax

___

• A decent drum kit:  $650
• Snare stand: $47
• A cymbal pack: $570
• Hihat stand: $40
• A crash stand: $32
• A ride stand: $48
• A few sets of drumsticks (includes a drum key): $20
• Kick drum pedal: $100
• Extra heads for snare and toms:  $45
• Extra head for the kick: $36
• Some padding to soften the kick: $21
• and a drum throne: $30
• Total for the Drummer = roughly $1,810 after tax

___ 

• Frontman's heavy duty wireless mic setup, because we're hip nowadays: $640
• Small practice PA system: $340
• Long Speaker cables x2: $30 ($15 each)
• Mic cable for the wireless setup to the PA system: $5
• Mic stand, so the frontman can play his guitar and sing: $20
• Frontman equipment total =  roughly $1,140 after tax

So, while many of them have built up this collection of gear of a number of years playing and practicing.  Collectively,  they've invested around $5,600 into their gear.  Now, on top of that, there's things that need replacing and care regularly for these active "cool-cats" of rock.  The consumables the band needs to upkeep their gear are equally as important, so lets say they stay on top of everything really well, and actually have to go through these on a monthly basis:

• Set of Bass strings: $8
• Bassist might need new picks, he and the guitarist share:  $4
• Good guitar strings for shredding: $12
• New heads for snare and toms:  $45
• New head for the kick: $36
• New sticks as the old ones break and wear down: $8
• Total cost per month = $125, collectively

That's some serious cash right there already.  I bet none of you were expecting this huge of a list, were you.  Well, it's definitely a whole heck of a lot cheaper than what it used to be!  Compare this to the massive collection of guitars Eric Clapton just has to have, or the huge concerts being put on by the chart topping bands and you can imagine how that price quickly escalates;  drummers buy new gear to get different sounds, guitarists upgrade their "rig" and expand their sounds, Bassists get bigger and punchier stacks to get that "kick your chest in the balls" low-end.  It doesn't end there either!  What about capturing that sound?  After all we're talking about the music industry right? Then we must be talking about CD's and albums.
 
Alright boys and girls, time to get out your wayback machine (yeah I said it, i'm lame).  Let's head back to Abbey Road Studios in London where that famous old band of the 60's recorded most of their albums: The Beatles.  Why the Beatles?  Because.  There, I figured that got your attention.  Let's take a look at how a typical breakdown of all the pieces in play here.

First off, there's all the band members, 3 guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer.  Vocals would be carried out by various members, a couple more prominently than others.  There's the band's manager, and then there's the label, (referencing their most known album Abbey Road)Apple, and then the entity of the recording studio and it's engineers and producers etc...  Right away you can tell the number of people involved in this endeavor of recording their album is pretty numerous.  That's a lot of mouths to feed, all expecting to get paid for their work.  Next up, the facilities, location, and the equipment, the spaces aren't tiny or cheap on rent, and I'm sure you can't even imagine for that time the equipment is outrageously expensive to get and maintain / operate.  This takes a serious amount of money to make something as simple as an album that someone can pick up at a store and listen to.

Just take a look at some of the preview page over at The Beatles' Book site.  The book is an invaluable resource for any producer, recording engineer, musician, agent, or any other job in the music business model as it has real-world documentary insight into every aspect of it.  Just look at the breakdown of the equipment categories they cover:

• Mixers
• Outboard gear
• Microphones
• Tape Machines
• Speakers & Amplifiers\
• Effects
• Studio Instruments

The multitude of technology (including the musical instruments) takes a lot of know-how to run, and a lot of money to acquire, and maintain.  Those recording engineers wore lab coats; geeky electronics geniuses with electrical engineering chops at the very most.  Couple that with the era and that technology in general was still very young and not commonplace.  Imagine how outrageously expensive that kind of equipment must have been.  This is the peak of the Major Label Studio era as I like to call it.

This stuff is so enormous in cost and skill to use that it's reserved for only the highest caliber businesses and specialists (cough - recording studios - cough) because most laymen wouldn't have the first clue how to operate any of it.  This sort of specialization was key to the success of the music industry then, and possibly why music was so different compared to today's music.  Songwriters focused on writing songs, performers focused on practicing and performing them, and the recording studios with engineers and music producers focused on recording and producing records.

Pretty simple right?  If only it had stopped there.  Technology kept advancing and getting more and more affordable.  Not just that, it kept getting better!  Fast forward to the mid 70's with the introduction of digital domain making it's debut in the audio industry via Tape storage.  Soon, in the mid 80's the revolution of the compact disc fueld by the new era of digital recording blows the doors to the music scene wide open.  Let's take U2 for example, Pretty big name and even bigger studios abroad with their Joshua Tree album.

Digital technology is beginning to sweep across the industry making it more affordable, but the Analog domain technology is still the mainstay as it's been a proven and reliable way of recording; and bands like U2 are doing some pretty amazing things with the technology at more cost-effective prices than before.  Things continue to get cheaper, but again, still reserved for big budget studios.  For this album, they had the funding and actually set up a studio in a house outside Dublin, Ireland.  Had technology not improved it wouldn't have been possible for them to do this.  Simultaneously, a new home-based technology was sprouting alongside computers - Pro Tools.

When Pro Tools hit the mass market and peaked as computers were gaining momentum in the consumer marketplace, It would slowly consume the music world from the bottom up.  This was the first DAW to come around and catered to home musicians wanting to record but couldn't afford access to big time studios.  As we progress through the 90's and now, technology picked up at such an amazing pace, that recording technology is more affordable, and ubiquitous than ever.  In fact, it's actually 10x cheaper to start a home "recording studio" than it is to buy a car!  This is the part where I get tricky with numbers.   Want to see just how it breaks down?

Let's consider all the equipment that's really necessary for a single musician to start recording his or herself at home, absolute barebones basics:

• First off, you'll need one of these: A typical desktop nowadays can easily handle audio recording tasks, so with a screen, keyboard, mouse and tower (full package) expect around $1,000 U.S.D.
• 2nd off, you're going to need a DAW: The industry standard Pro Tools is usually a safe bet though there are plenty of others out there just as good to choose from, as well as the plethora of equipment it can take to get audio recorded.. but for now, this nice little package will be more than enough to get you started: Guitar Center's awesome package sets you back a cool $680 roughly, covers a recording interface, software, microphone, stand, cables, and studio reference speakers, pretty sweet eh?
• So, this is where it starts to get unique according to the individual, so I'm going to say that in this hip, digital-heavy lifestyle we've all adopted in this day and age that computer saavy folk will probably have no issues with me referencing virtual instruments instead of physical ones.  My first guess is at this point you'll probably need some type of input device: a USB keyboard should do fine at roughly $170, we're already starting to push beyond barebones basics here.
• Seeing as how the pop culture right now centers around hip-hop, pop-dance, electronic stuff I won't spend any money on actual music gear here because that's actually pretty expensive nowadays when you add up all the instruments one could collect.  For now, let's round up some virtual instruments instead that would more than cover what's needed to make "hit tunes". Reason does a fairly good job; there are literally a ton of specialist and high-quality professional Virtual Instruments from around the globe that can do better, but Reason has a very eclectic library of sounds to choose from that are all production quality-ready for any composer / artist to produce complete songs in.  That's going to be another $300.  Learning curves aside, the internet has infinite educational value nowadays: First google search result brought me Free Reason tutorial videos

Assuming you've already got creative ideas and the experience in crafting music know-how to pull off what you want to achieve, all that's left is to start recording right?  So, at a minimal budget of somewhere around $2,500 U.S.D. we've got a home-based recording studio that actually is extremely powerful.  Did I come in under my mark? I believe I did.  In fact, It's actually cheaper than starting a real band.  Remember Billy's band?  That was a collective $5,600 just for the instruments and gear to perform the music.  To top that off, they'd have to spend weeks writing the songs and practicing them to near-perfection.

So, here we are in this long-ass blog about the music industry and you're probably thinking "wow he's totally lost his argument".  It really couldn't be any easier now to make music than ever before, and this is totally 100% true.  Well, Let's bring Billy in.  Gone is his band, he just wants to write the music on his own without all the fuss of the politics that go on; the drummer can't keep it straight with the scheduling, and the bassist can't focus long enough in between the phone calls from all the hot chicks wanting to get with the sexy bass-player (because he plays bass, right?). Now, with all that noise out of the picture Billy can get in control of the creative license for a moment and actually make something.

The virtual instruments give him a good sound for the bass and the drums, and with Pro Tools and his microphone he can record his live guitar sounds and his voice and viola, instant song!  Wow, that's easy!  Why aren't you all doing it too?!  Except recording is only 1 tiny phase, and usually it happens way later in the process.

What Billy just did was a Demo.  Sorry Billy, but you're guitar skills are better than your audio engineering chops.  You've got a ton of "bleed" sound coming from your speakers into your microphone while you were recording guitar and vocals; Not just that, but the recording just doesn't sound right.  The virtual instruments sound fine aside from some things being somewhat louder than others should be.  What's the problem?  Why doesn't it sound like a cd?

Here's the secret the recording studios don't want anyone to know.  This is super secret because once the word is out... it won't change a thing.  Those recording studios have tons of expensive gear, we know this; Billy knows this.  Well that recording software Pro Tools must not be good enough, right?  Except Pro Tools is actually in over 80% of all studios (big budget and project alike) as even studios are centered around the DAW and Computer now.  In fact, they tend to use the same effects you get with the software that Billy and we all get with our version we buy from the local music shop.

It must be the mic, crappy low-end technology showing its true colors it seems!  Also not true,  read any of the plethora of recording trade magazines like EQ (go ahead, take a look at the $100 SM57 credited), Mix, Computer Music, and they'll quote famous engineers giving away their dirty studio secrets recording the latest chart topping-band and you'll find the microphone lockers have a surprising number of "cheap", or "lowend" mics.

Then perhaps it's just your room, sorry Billy; that's it - it's the room man.  While the room really does make all the difference in a recording, Billy was recording pretty "dry" sounds where the sound of the room wasn't majorly affecting the sound.  So what is it then?  First off, I can tell you Billy doesn't know the first thing about what happens after recording.  It turns out there's actually some more steps involved.  While I show Billy here where the Compressors, limiters, EQ,'s and other effects plugins are in Pro Tools and Reason; he's only going to get more and more confused and the "allure" of making music easy is going up in smoke with his temper.  Calm down there bro, your recordings aren't half-bad.

What sets apart those huge sounding professional cd's coming from big bands?  Go grab your favorite cd and take a look at the names on there.  I can guarantee you'll find way more than just the band members.  It takes engineers, assistant engineers, mixing engineers, assistant mixing engineers, mastering engineers, assistant mastering engineers, digital editors, producers, A&R personnel, A&R Coordinators, Marketing Directors, photographers, album design artists, guitar technicians, Drum Technicians, studio or session musicians for backing parts, lackies, and sometimes even outside influences (composers, lyricists, etc..) that have their spot in the project.  Those engineers spent their time learning about compressors and E.Q. and microphone polar patterns , the producers learned how to manage the project and coordinate and budget the stages of production for the artist and record label; everyone has their place and something they've specialized in.

Did you know there's actually 3 stages of making an album?  Billy didn't.  Billy's still stuck in the recording phase, and already there's a lot to manage and consider at that point.  The final stage that comes next is actually even more tedious and time consuming, and that's the art and craft of mixing, and mastering.  In fact, these two processes are so in-depth that you can find studios that only specialize in one particular process.

Even with the revolution of the digital era and virtual processing on the computer bringing down costs, Billy could easily take a few years just to learn how himself, or even just barely start using the equipment he already has for all these functions.  After all, the the stuff he bought is certainly capable of it.  The labor involved is so intensive, because there is so much to control and so much to be aware of that Billy here can just take his recording to one of those studios and spend a fraction of the tuition it would cost him to go to school and try to learn how to do it himself.  Or at the very least, save him countless hours toiling away trying to achieve that "cd" sound when a professional can do it promptly and with precision.

I know Billy personally, he started music at the same time I did when I was a kid.  I went down the recording path and Billy took the performer path.  While we are at similar levels of skill we are worlds apart in our experiences in our craft.  Billy would have to spend years catching up to me as a recording artist and engineer.  Likewise, I would have to put in countless hours a day practicing an instrument or the like to catch up to Billy's finesse with his guitar solos.  That said, there is a hefty amount of respect to be had for any particular function in the industry as we witness the power of making music shift from the hands of the big budget studio to the hands of the individual.

There's an endless sea of music being put out from just about everyone on the planet it seems nowadays.  Some of it is amazing, but it's rarer now to find great compositions or beautiful masterpieces as we've entered the era of digital consumerism.  The landscape of the music industry has changed from creative war reserved for those with the specialists of their craft, to that of the DIY music house.  We've witnessed the fall of rock and the live band being the main attraction to the perfect auto-tuned electronic pop and dance tunes played until they're played out at clubs; those same songs get recycled in an endless wave of remixes by the DJ-gone-producer.