Negotiating Interview

I recently did an interview on Orlando Rodriguez. He is a Grammy award wining audio engineer and producer who is frequently negotiating contracts. He told me of a situation where he made a deal with a label to produce and mix a song. The song had to be done in exactly a week in order for him to receive his pay and to receive thirty five percent of royalties. Orlando began working on the song, but was falling behind schedule and was not sure to finish by the deadline. He knew of a friend who was an also an audio engineer who needed work. He quickly sat down with him and explained the situation. The friend agreed to help Orlando out with the agreement that he would receive fifteen percent of the royalties Orlando would receive plus a certain amount of money, which Orlando was going to receive when the job was done. Orlando knew that without his help, he would not finish the song in time and he would not be paid. Orlando was going to agree to his terms but pushed on to bring the deal more in his favor. He knew this song was going to generate a large amount of revenue in royalties and he knew his friend was in need of money. He proposed that he would not give royalties to him, but he would give him eighty percent of the money he would receive upfront. The engineer immediately agreed. Orlando was able to get the song done in time and receive his payment. This I believe is an example of mutual benefit. Orlando had to have the song done by the deadline to receive payment. He knew he would not have it in time so he hired his friend who was in need of money to help him out. Orlando was more interested in the royalties than the upfront money he was going to receive so he gave a larger amount of that money to his friend. At the end, everybody’s needs were met and they all had a mutual gain.

Types Of Mechanical Royalties

In the music industry, whether you are a publisher, songwriter, recording artist, or a recording company, you have many ways to capitalize on profit. One of the biggest and the main stream of income in the music industry are royalties. Royalties are the payment for the use of the asset. The percent of royalties each person gets is based on who is on the copyright of the asset and what is stated in the contract. There are four types of royalties, which are mechanical licensees, performance rights, synchronization rights, and print rights. All of these different types of royalties have their own subcategories to break royalties down in their specific group. Today I will be talking about the different types of mechanical royalties. The first type is the recording artist mechanical royalties. This may be one of the most difficult royalties to understand since recording companies operate differently. The artist is paid a percentage of the sales of the recording depending on the contract. The artist does not get the immediate percentage of the record sales. The recording company must first collect the money they invested in the artist. They also deduct the promotion and packaging. The artist collects in royalties what has been left of the profit. The second type is the writer/publisher mechanical royalties. The record company calculates the total royalties and gives the publisher its percentage share. From there, the publisher pays the writer a percentage of the royalties received. The government has set up a statutory rate of $0.08 for a song that is five minutes or less in time. The third type is the Internet royalties. Each time a song is downloaded, the artist gets a percent of the royalties. This type of royalties is usually less compared to the other types. The recording companies also deduct a twenty-five percent packaging fee even though there is no packing involved in online songs. 

Sources

http://musicians.about.com/od/musiciansfaq/f/paymechanicals.htm

http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/mechanical.html

Rise And Fall Of The Music Industry

In these last couple of years, the music industry has lost a significant amount of sales, which has caused numerous professional studios to close down and lower their prices. This is partly due because the number of home studios currently built is rapidly increasing. Recording equipment is affordable enough for a person to create a home studio and provide high quality CDs. These people can also distribute their own song by cutting the middleman and selling the songs themselves with help from online websites such as CD Baby or Sound Click. This has cut into the profit margin of many labels. However, the primary reason is that the digital era has overwhelmed the physical CD world. There is a slow but steady transition from physical CD to digital media. Consumers are buying more songs online then actual physical CDs. In 2007, 80% of record sales was from physical CDs and the remaining 20% was from digital downloads. In 2009, 64% of record sales were from physical CDs and the remaining 36% was from digital downloads. As you can see, the trend of digital downloads keeps rising. This has forced record labels to promote, distribute, and sell from what they are used to in the physical records realm. The music industry is slowly changing into the digital realm. There is a lot of material to capitalize on, but as of now, nobody has come up with a way to do this. The closest thing we have seen is iTunes, which is the biggest online music distributer. One of the areas, which is improving the music industry and is currently growing in numbers and sales, is concerts. It’s not that more people are going to concerts; it is however that people are paying more to get into concerts. The reason for this may be that concerts and live productions have improved tremendously. The growing income from live performance 
has compensated losses from the dying sale of CD’s. 

Sources

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/10/090810fa_fact_seabrook

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118021441?refCatId=16

http://www.jamesehearn.com/media/Threats-To-Studio-Survivability.pdf

Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us

The speaker I choose from the TED speakers was Julian Treasure. He shared his knowledge through his speech by explaining how sound affects everything we do on a day-to-day basis. He explained that sound is divided into four different groups that effects us differently. The first one is physiological that affects our breathing, heart rate and brain waves. The second one is psychological which affects our emotional state. The third one is cognitive which affects our productivity. Finally, the fourth one is behaviorally, which tells us actions to take. He explained based on these four groups of sound that you can design a plan on how to attract or accomplish a goal with a specific brand to attract people. He goes on to explain that music is the most powerful sound in the planet because you are able to recognize and associate it faster then any other type of sound. This speech caught my attention immediately and helped me better understand sound. I can benefit from this topic tremendously since my passion revolves around sound. Using these four groups I now understand what sounds affect people and how. I am now able to use sound to control people subconsciously. This knowledge will help me tremendously when I create products for my clients. When I create music, I can add sounds into the work to influence the listeners and attract them. I believe there is a key in this research of the four groups of sound that could help engineers bring popularity to their work. This speech also reinforced the thought that music is not going to go anywhere since it the most powerful form of sound. The music industry is suffering in some aspects, but I believe there is a new way to go around this and prosper. Music is a constant evolving sound that drives human beings and I want to capitalize on it as much as possible.


Source
http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_the_4_ways_sound_affects_us.html

Association Of Professional Recording Services

The association that most interested me and that I would like to become a part of is the Association Of Professional Recording Services (APRS). It’s an association that has been active for fifty years and whose sole purpose is to provide the highest standard through the industry, while providing ways for audio professionals to work together. APRS establishes many programs and conferences for professionals to get together and bring awareness of the current pros and cons of the industry as well as teaching new techniques about the recording process. APRS had a conference that caught my attention as I read their article. An issue had to be resolved over the next couple of years. The issue was the misuse and overuse of compression. The target audience was not just music recording, but also motion picture, as well as radio broadcast, and television. For the music side, it is the record companies fault for asking for a loud as possible music track. The only way for this is to compress the track enough to get the desired volume. Many audio engineers are becoming aware of an issue that needs to be resolved to bring back the quality in sound recordings. This was the main purpose of this conference, to bring this issue to light and bring awareness. I can relate to this issue very well. When I compress my mixes during mastering, I usually squash the track quite a lot in order for the music track to be loud, so that it can compare and compete with the music tracks that are released in our present day. The public and other audio engineers and recording companies feel that they have to keep up with the trend in order to survive in the entertainment world. In reality, we are giving up quality when we do this to get a loud as possible music track. The same as mp3 formats. We are giving up quality in order for the music track to become smaller in size so that we can fit more in our iPod. Our current society is getting used to this and it can become a problem in the future when they cannot tell the difference between good and bad quality recordings. Below is a picture where you can observe the difference between loud and normal tracks. 

Sources

http://www2.aprs.co.uk/Default.aspx?pageId=251628

Acoustic Foam Treatment

Owning a studio in your own house is becoming more popular now since the cost for the audio equipment has become affordable and portable. You may have all your studio equipment ready to go and record, but if your room is not acoustically treated then you have a big problem when recording and mixing. When the sound leaves the speakers, the sound bounces of the walls to the listener and sends a false signal that is not really the original signal. These false signals are known as reflections and they are a big problem that affects your sound. We can stop and control these reflections by acoustically treating the room. A popular way to do this is to buy acoustic foam and place them on your walls. You may have already gone and checked the prices for acoustic foam and seen that the prices are ridiculous for a piece of foam. The most common price for this acoustic foam is 24 pieces of 12x12 acoustic foam for $109.99. You can check them out at this link http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Wedgies/. It would seem that treating your room acoustically would put a big dent on your wallet, but it is something that has to be done to acquire the perfect true sound in your room. Today I bring you a website that will only scratch your pockets. At Foam Factory, you can find the same kind of foam for very cheap prices. You could buy 12 pieces of 12x12 acoustic foam for $15.99. You may be thinking that it has to be a knock-off for being that cheap, but the reality is that its not. The foam is identical; you are only paying more with the other foams because of the brand name. You can check them out at this link http://www.foambymail.com/AW2/acoustical-2-wedge-foam.html. Foam Factory offers different kinds of foam for you room such as, bass traps, monitor isolations, wedge foam, pyramid foam and many more. You can also pick the color that best suits your taste. I personally have purchased large amounts of acoustic foams from Foam Factory for the fraction of the price that it would have cost for the brand-name foam.

Presonus Studio Channel

If your on a budget and you need to start acquiring gear for your signal chain or you just simply want to just upgrade, then I have the perfect all in one wonder for you. The Presonus Studio Channel has a preamplifier, compressor, and equalizer. There is no need to purchase these three different types of audio gear where you can get it all in one and for the price of $300. The Studio Channel has a class A 12AX7 tube amplifier. MXL microphones are not the best microphones when you want to purchase a microphone, but it will get the job done for engineers starting in this career. I recorded vocals with this microphone through the Studio Channel and it sounded amazing. It changed the characteristics of the microphone by adding a wider and fuller sound. The studio channel also has a VCA compressor, which is known for its ability to manipulate the fastest transients when recording. The compressor has all your basic knobs such as threshold, attack, and release. The Studio Channel’s three band parametric equalizer is good to take out those unwanted frequencies that are disturbing your sound. It also adds a smooth and sweet type of color to the sound. Equalizing when recording is not common, but you can also you this as an insert in your postproduction. The Presonus Studio Channel is an amazing piece of gear. This was my first gear for my signal chain and it definitely transformed the quality of my recordings to reach that professional sound. For the price on the Studio Channel, you cannot possibly go wrong. This is a piece of audio gear that will upgrade your sound, especially if you are on a budget and starting in to the recording world. Below I provided links so you can read the technical specifications for the Studio Channel.

http://www.presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=57

http://forum.recordingreview.com/content/presonus-studio-channel-review-77/

Advanced Audio Microphones Review: Neumann U87 vs. CM-87

Neumann U87 vs. CM-87

In our current economy, it is difficult to stay on top of the recording industry, buying the latest gear or owning some of the best gear out there. For instance, the legendary microphone, which almost each known engineer has in his or her arsenal, is the Neumann U87. The price of this microphone starts at $3,000 and keeps going up as newer versions are made. Not everyone can afford to buy this type of microphone. Luckily, the patent rights expired for this microphone and Advanced Audio Microphones took advantage of this. They created an almost identical twin to the Neumann U87. They call this microphone the CM-87. You can purchase this cheap professional microphone for $380. You may think this might be a cheap knock off, but it is far from it. I compared this microphone to the original and I had a hard time trying to find differences between them. Advanced Audio Microphones even lets you add parts to customize your microphone to the sound you are looking for. The CM-87 also includes the three polar patterns like the Neumann U87, which are Cardioid, Omnidirectional, and Figure 8. As you can see by the frequency charts below, they are very similar. 

CM-87 Frequency Chart

Neumann U87 Frequency Chart

You can check the bottom links to compare the specs from the Neumann and Advanced audio Microphones website. You will find out that they are identical even with their internal parts. You might still be thinking it sounds too good to be true, but you can check the reviews on these microphones from some of pros in the industry. The CM-87 was also featured in Tape Op magazine where they give a run down on the microphone and Advanced Audio Microphone. Therefore, if you are on a budget and need to acquire a microphone that sounds amazing then you should try the CM-87. 

Sources

http://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=u87_data

http://www.aamicrophones.com/fet_mics/cm_87.htm