Ableton Forum

Now that vinyl has a few short years left before it's just not economically feasible any more, will it be possible to make a living from recording and writing your own music anymore?

or will you only be able to earn a living playing music live - either your own or DJing/playing other peoples music.....?

This is also going on the assumption that it will always be possible to earn a living by playing live.....

Any nice success stories would be nice to hear!

I think playing live has become the way to go. It's easier to play 10 amazing shows and build a fan base that way than relying on recording sales. Recordings have turned into promotion material, at least for the independent artist.

i am closing down my studio next week to go as a live sound engineer for a few month to get more cash , labels don't give the same kind of money to bands to make records , everyone is going freelance , self promotion/pr/production....record sales are bad .
but on the other hand there is a huge demand for live acts so i follow the trend as this is where the money is at the moment .
the music industry is like a mine field , if you make the wrong step you die so i convert myself now before it's too late .

I think that Live shows are where one has the best chance of selling recordings. some of the innovative artist's delivery systems may be the way of the future. Ex. Artistshare.com, emusic, ect. There is such a glut of music out now and peoples taste have become so personal it's hard to break through in any major way. One relationship with fans at a time is the way to go.

'who cares recordings are for promoting live shows'

I think the best way to marry music and finances is by doing live shows, and by being clever with how you package your cds to sell online & at shows. I like the idea of creative commons, eg, you can use my tunes, add to my tunes, play my tunes, but you must give me the credit I am due and not make cash on my work. I look at a tune as I would look at a seed that came from a plant I nurtured and bred to my liking, I want this seed to spread all around the world so that everyone can be inspired/repulsed by my plant. However, if some fuckjaw starts spreading my seeds as his, and/or somehow charges people for my seed...I will strangle him with my string-for-a-belt.

on the other-hand, I do fantasize about completely selling out and making bling-bling style hip-hop in the usa, complete with booty videos and spending cash in the most obscene ways imaginable. such as fur. and diamond crucifixes worth hundreds of thousands - while children die for the want of clean water

producers produce to get gigs if they were dj's first - some producers have never dj'd but people want to see them perform their music

I want to produce because I feel I have something to give to the club scene

but I want to play parties / clubs because I enjoy djing

Vinyl will never die

Ipods are actually cool - whether you like that division of Apple or not they are a godsend...it's kind of revolutionized the way I think about music and manage my music

I think the future is very bright indeed for all aspects of music - digital, live performances and vinyl

It's only the true haters who will think one is dead and the other is not

i agree that vinyl will never die, it may not command a huge chunk of the market, but it is going to be there for a long time. audiophiles wont let it die...

and mp3's really globalised music....in terms of sheer influence, fuck the economics. art for art's sake, right ?

djadonis206 wrote: Ipods are actually cool - whether you like that division of Apple or not they are a godsend...it's kind of revolutionized the way I think about music and manage my music

could you please elaborate on that.. how come a plastic toy makes you think different about music??

and back to topic, I really dislike the music industry, they slaved one of the most beautiful art expression under the capitalism and consumism, well f**k them all, I am going to be MY music industry promoting my stuff playing live (thanks to a lot of luck and good connections I have the chance now to finally play out live).

A primary contribution that computer-based music technology has provided is to raise the production values of live, original music performance.

The majority of people slag off going to see live bands because the sound would stink-- they just knew they didn't like what they heard, "it doesn't sound much like a record". This, imo, is the primary reason for the ascendancy of the DJ.

For musicians, you can get originals coming out of this technology that 'sound like records' at a much lower cost. They can get placement in the same digital "stores" as the 'brand names' This is huge.

For the mass music industry, there is something of a turning point, but it's mostly good. I think it boils down to is the amount of energy/money required to generate 'critical artist brand interest', to the point where the resources expended to generate the interest can be exceeded-- the digital distribution stores do not require a change in the way 'big music' promotes acts, but they are an increasingly large alternate revenue stream that sell people music *by the portions they want* without incurring distribution overhead. This is huge, also.

(also, yeh! to what minimal said. many of us are 'too risky' in any number of ways for a record company to bend their mighty neck down to see, so eff'em)

mp3s and other digital music forms are the way forward. itunes isn't - it's too expensive. 99p per song, you must be joking! CDs likewise.

Considering the fact that a musician only gets about 5% of a major label CD sale (if they've repaid their advance) (ok maybe 10% if they wrote the songs), i reckon the way forward lies in the digital world reducing the other 90-95% of production costs to as small a figure as possible. What do we really gain from the 'music industry' nowadays? (Aside from provision of studios and support for live shows, which artists (or their management) could actually do for themselves anyway). Well... mainly it sorts the good music from the bad (in theory at least) and that is a valuable function. But there are efforts underway to replace this - still experimental maybe, but see http://last.fm, http://www.garageband.com, http://magnatune.com. When artists can produce the music themselves and ideas like this get the good stuff promoted to the masses, there's even less reason to give any money to 'the industry'.

And then we can all sell tracks for 20p each and keep most of the cash.

And when it's that cheap to buy music, people won't actually bother to pirate it. Piracy is a problem because music is currently a ripoff imo - it's the fault of the industry.

Or so I hope. Either that or DRM will destroy music as we know it.

</£0.02>

minimal wrote:

djadonis206 wrote: Ipods are actually cool - whether you like that division of Apple or not they are a godsend...it's kind of revolutionized the way I think about music and manage my music

could you please elaborate on that.. how come a plastic toy makes you think different about music??

Are you serious?

I know that owning an iPod has at least doubled the amount of music i listen to.

I can listen to any recording i want anywhere i want.

I can plug my ipod in at the local bar and expose other people to new music.



Of course it's nice to throw a record on when i get home, but that's only a small percentage of my listening time now that its not my only option.


Hey i understand, i used to be an ipod hater too. Loved to flaunt my cassette walkman. Lemme tell you though, after finally breaking down and buying one i'll never go back.


.lm.

by the way, i couldn't answer this poll because i simply don't believe that there is much of a music industry to speak of.

There's a huge entertainment industry, but music as a pure artform is already nearly dead as a commercial entity.


.lm.

minimal wrote:

djadonis206 wrote: Ipods are actually cool - whether you like that division of Apple or not they are a godsend...it's kind of revolutionized the way I think about music and manage my music

could you please elaborate on that.. how come a plastic toy makes you think different about music??

Sure

I now have access to music I wouldn't normally getting around to listening to at home - my Ipod can hold quit a bit, alot more than my discman could - so with the space and freedom this thing allows me to have I buy more music because I can actually listen to it

plus I can organize my music - hard techno playlist, gay ass trance playlist and so on - I have a gangsta rap playlist as well - this is so much better than carrying around 20 tapes or 10 cd's

Also, I can make a song, import into my player and check it out on the bus - instead of burning a disc with one song on it

The Ipod may have done nothing for you and that's fine, but for me it's made me think differently about music - i have more access to it which opens my mind - if I download a song and decide I don't like it, I don't have to change cd's or tapes, I just scroll the list and listen to something else

i would have never went out and bought a Christopher Lawrence cd, but since I was curious and didn't have to put in the effort to go to the store I bought it on line - wow, it's good plus I listen for production techniques etc <---that's one example

The band Fuzz Townshend - I heard one of their songs at work, instead of hunting the single down all over I just downloaded it, listened to it and now I liek the band <---that's another example

I can listen to different dj's and producers beats (alot more) in one sitting and try and figure out how they did this or that, on the bus or a walk at lunch <---- that be another

blah blah blah

If I'm feeling lucky - that's what the random thing is for

since you asked

I am positive that it will have to change. I am positive that this can prove to be a very positive thing... The industry basically missed the internet boat, and their most innovative idea since, well, ever, is to convince people to buy the same music once (vinyl), twice (crappy cd), three times ('remastered' cd), four times (download), and probably again in a few years as uncompressed downloads... I have to respect the business talent that takes, but fuck's sake... they're all parasitic little ticks that contribute little but carbondioxide to this planet.