I'm
talking between say Virgin Records. Moonshine has enlisted several of my
friends for contracts and your track is tighter than their stuff.
Understandably they were more of a self rolling perfomance complete with
lightshow with a built up following in Seattle. Realistically though there
are guys out there that put out everything from white labels to
compilations. In fact when it comes down to it many of the larger DJ's
have a label they release under (Can we say Perfecto?) so you may even want to
send acetates to them and have them spin em out. I'm coming from the glass
is half full perspective. I have a friend who gets the rolls royce
treatment when she spins in new york, gets comps like you wouldn't
believe, and the labels are smaller and willing to deal with more people.
Another option is to have it pressed yourself and to release comps to record
stores and see if they'll let you sell on consignment. A lot of shops will
let you sell four or five records for a percentage.
You
are correct of course when you talk about mastering for vinyl, the rules change
a bit, especially depending on the length of your track, the bass
heavyniess of the track (DNB on 45rpm because the bass grooves are too wide for
35rpm usually one track per side). IMHO when I am talking mastering I am
talking mastering houses that will do a full treatment on it. Hopefully if
you do have an anthem on your hands it will get released on a CD comp in all
it's glory, plenty of CD DJ's out there as well. A common complaint of
mastering houses is that the material was over compressed ahead of time, or the
quality of the master was so bad it took them twice as much effort to do the
"Magic" to the track. Dithering can and will make a difference if they
have to do editing or sweetening to your track. That's why you pay a
mastering house to do what they do. Plenty of people do get their own
material release quality, and that in fact gets labels interested in them purely
from a financial perspective, but it means the artist is spending their time and
effort on the technical not the creative side. A good suggestion is
sending in a track your proud of along with a track by someone else you respect
the mastering of and have a mastering house do their magic. Then compare
the result. If possible ask if you can sit in on it and watch what they
do. From my perspective I'd rather get on with the music and enjoy my
day. Some stuff can get fixed in the mix, but not
everything.
Props,
Andre
-----Original Message-----
From: erik_magrini@... [mailto:erik_magrini@...]
Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 9:02 AM
To: xl7@yahoogroups.com
Cc: xl7@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [xl7] New rEalm tune
Hehe, Moonshine a smaller label? You're joking right?
I'm not trying to say you're wrong, but I've been sending out promos for a few years now, not to mention I've got a pretty relationship with a lot of the nu skool breaks label owner in the UK right now (Sounds of Habib, Plastic Raygunn, Disuye, TCR) etc. Sure if they like your tune they'll talk about pressing it, but there's a lot of work that goes into putting out a record, so they don't just take the ones that sound good (obviously that's ONE of the prerequisites though). There's marketting plans to think about, promotion budgets, regional exposure, whether or not it has the 'sound' a label is known for, etc.
I truly wish it was as easy as just finding a small label and letting them press it, but you've got to find the right label, one who's willing to invest in an unknown producer(s). Not that we're not going to try still, the B-side is in the works right now...
BTW, mastering for vinyl is a completely different process than regular CD mastering, and has nothing to do with dither. A record pressing plant will typically have an in house engineer who's job is to take your nice, pristine CD master, and make sure it'll work on a record. They don't do any dithering at this stage, unless they need to completely remaster your song in the first place, which is rare nowadays as the labels will have caught any of those issues long before it get sent to be pressed. The pressing plant will check to make sure your bass frequencies are centered, not panning around, or pulled hard to one side (causes the needle to jump out of the groove). They also determine how hot to burn the record (+6dB is typical for dance tunes), an how far apart the grooves should be given the track length, and the bass content. Typcially recored with lots of bass with need deeper grooves that are farther apar! t.! Lots of good articles out there on vinyl pressing if you need more info...
rEalm
I knew of a guy in New York that prints house tracks, he would get stuff in on Dat and just print it if it didn't need mastering. Prefered DAT because he needed to remaster a bunch of em and wanted the higher quality. Really doesn't matter what the format is I'm sure. Some things are obviously easier to work with for mastering if it hasn't allready been compressed and dithered. Just send em out, That track is sweet enough if you sent it to a smaller label I'm sure they would pick it up. Try Moonshine Records, they're pretty decent.
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