Music Industry 101 by Chuck Platinum
I been in this game a long time man and everyone always ask. How do I get on? What do I have to do to make it? Well here's some news....STOP TRYNA MAKE IT AND MAKE IT HAPPEN. You think these opportunities with Diddy came over night? you think that doing all of this press and stuff came overnight? Dawg this is YEARS of hard work..years of NO's years of your shit ain't ready years of yo you know what? this kid got somethin..to now world reknown producer. I don't talk about my credits because I'm not here trying to impress anyone. I worked hard to build the relationships I have and theres no other person that I give the glory to all of this happening, but GOD.Start your journey by believing in God. Stop chasing people to fulfill your dreams because if you do you will be easily discouraged and unfavored. God only receives those who keeps their eyes on Him and not the world. Not saying that you have to be perfect, but believe in Him first and anything you ever wanted will happen. Next thing is believe in yourself. Becoming a great (put your talent here) takes much work, perseverance, strength, dignity, and swag. You see ordinary joes out there everyday making it. People ask all the time "How does someone like Soulja Boy make it and I don't??" because SOULJA BOY believed in SOULJA BOY which made God believe in him which brought Him to Mr. Collipark its that simple. Next thing is create your own lane. Do you have to go major? HELL NO. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with a major deal, but the truth is the majors are looking for independents anyway. They are starving for new talent trust me. It may seem like the labels arent looking but they are looking for new people to invest in every single day. The problem is 95% of the people don't invest in themselves...OK say you can't get a .com right? say you just can't afford someone to do a domain...fine..WHY ya myspace gotta look like ya mama did it??? then you expect people to look at you? Second of all the music on the players be soundin horrible!!!! Listen....everyone got protools...MBOX comes in a kit 499, but that is just to put your idea down. If you want to compete in the big leagues you will have to invest going into a studio with engineers that are specifically there to do their job and thats to listen to your music. YOU NEED MORE THAN ONE EAR!!!! your family is gonna tell you your shit is hot because thats your family and they want you to succeed, but all your shit aint hot. SHIT all my shit aint hot, but its hot enough that people noticed it because I put time and effort into my work. So don't go to cuzzin peewee studio and record for 10 dollars an hour. Go to an accredited studio that has background of working with major professional artists. It may be more expensive, but your sound will be worth it.
Third, your songs will have to be mixed right...for instance..you hear the beats on my page? they are whats called a rough mix which is just a clean enough mix where the sounds dont sound plain and you get an idea of what the idea will sound like once its mixed in a pro studio. This my friend is called Pre-Production...we all do it...unless you are Dr. Dre or Scott Storch (even they do pre-production and have engineers) then we are all doing pre-production. When you deal with a producer or you are producing your own track. Don't let the producer give you the mp3 and you think its done...thats lazy. The producer if he wants to call himself that will have to separate each track (WITH NO EFFECTS) so that the engineer can have the most room to mix your song right. Remember rapper your voice is an instrument also so you will not maximize the possibility of your song being great if you don't treat your voice as an instrument.
Ok.......so now you did all of that and your songs are mixed down to a T. You have to listen to the song in all kinds of settings i.e. wack ass computer speakers, head phones, car stereos, ipods whatever..because different systems have different decibel ranges so the engineer will have ya shit sounding magnificent in the studio and then you get on someone elses shit and your song sounds garbage..it happens all the time. Once you are satisfied with your mix the next step is off to the mastering house.
Mastering is a must have for your music. If you don't have a master of your music then you might as well just call it a wrap. Without this you will get no airplay, you will have no DJ play your music, noone will be interested. Mastering is when you take a well mixed song and add the juiciness to it what we call the punch. It turns whats a regularly pretty good mix into an awesome great song. When your track is mastered you will hear things in your music you never heard before. Your voice will sound great your music will be full the kicks will be right the snares will be on point and the whole melody will mesh together. Thats why you ask how these wack songs get so much play is because despite of the quality of the song these songs can be mixed and mastered to perfection enough where if you hear it enough times you will get it. When you get your song mastered most mastering houses will not have you present while your songs are being mastered. Some will but most wont so what you will do is have your whole album mastered at the same time. Its better to do it that way because the songs will match in volume and quality and your album will flow real nice.
So now your song is mastered and its sounding really sweet you are happy your song is ready for radio right? well maybe, but the most important part of this is your look. Now there are two formats of CD there is CD duplicating and CD replicating. The Mixtape CDs that you buy out of your local shop..just the regular ones that you can burn yourselves are duplicated. CD duplication is a low quality cheap way of burning a cd which burns the information on top of the CD so the life span of the CD is not expected to last too long. If you want a demo? hey...go ahead and burn CDs and you will get demo results which will be your CD in the trash. Now CD replication is this...when you have your music sounding all sweet and mastered..the mastering house will give you one or two CDs most give 2 this will be your master. You guard this with your dear life because this is what most major labels try to own the rights to when you are securing a deal (We will talk about that another time). This CD is encoded with special information specifically for reproduction with ISRC numbers and everything which is what makes your CD different from anyone elses. So you will give this CD to a replication plant and they will replicate your music by burning the information on to special plates that will become your future hits. These replicated CDs if you take care of them will last a life time and when people get your CD and its replicated they will be more reluctant to throw your cd away rather than joe schmoe who burnt their CD on their computer. Get some great artwork too!! something that will grab peoples eye at first sight that will make them want to pop your CD in and listen. I see a lot of wack designs and everyones CD looks the same...step it up man...get your shit together because this is wack. Look at some of your favorite artists CDs and you will notice the difference between a wack CD and classic...the thing we looked at back in the days was the packaging..as a DJ that made me want to read the credits...while your CD is playing..keep that in mind.
Now because this is the digital era also we can not negate MP3s if you're music is mastered correctly then even though its a compressed file your MP3 will still sound pure. So along with your CDs when you are marketing your music make sure that all your music is in MP3 format also so you can make it convenient for the consumer thats interested in your work to download your music and they will and they will pay too so don't sell yourself short. The average person should press 1000 CDs to start and when you are new in the game dont try to sell all of those CDs use them more as your resume because trust me if I see you put time into your work you will get a call back from me. Take about 200-300 of those just to give away, but dont give the CDs away to just anyone put it in the hands of people that count. Let your family download the MP3s or..some if they request you can sign them a CD also.
Now you got all of that? next thing to do is find people!!!!! There are going to be a lot more no's than yes, but the law of averages states that the more people that you pursue the more people will support. Myspace is a brilliant way to sell your music. 200 million plus people equals an opportunity for each musician to become a millionaire. It takes a lot of work though and it will probably be a year or so before you actually see progress so what you do as a combination is do open mics, do shows, go to all events, radio station gigs with CDs in hand and get an email list going that list is your money. Keep up with everyone that you email you can do a newsletter or just shout them out and let them know what you are doing and they will respond. Next thing you need to do is get a nice quality video. MAKE A VIDEO you might say how, but there are film schools out there that kids will do some great videos for cheap or free or if you cant do that hey...try to film your own...people need to see what you are doing out there along with your music so that your package is full and looking right..Sounds Good? theres a lot more things out there depending on what direction you want to go either major or independent, but this is a sure fire way to get heard...everything that I mentioned would probably be in the 3000-5000 range so if you are broke well..GETCHA MONEY UP thats just real..don't look for no deal if you aint put that money up in yourself. No multi billion dollar company will invest in you if you cant even take 5 grand of your own money and invest in yourself..Got it? Good...any questions just holla man I'm always on myspace so let me know whats good...over and out
