[Metal Ken]

Originally Posted by Paul Warren

That's cool and that is true with some of those metal bands. I don't know how they do it, but more power to them. Do most of those obscure thrash metal guys have families to support or are they younger and single with fairly meager lifestyles? I wonder, because if you don't have many costs in the first place, it would make your income from touring less of an issue and a pressure. Most of the guys I've seen who can do small tours like that seem to be carefree and not have much to cover financially. That's totally cool, but it's definitely a lifestyle choice, I'd say. Personally, I'd hate to live out of van for several weeks at a time. But there are people who can do it and be just fine. At least here locally, I specifically heard some smaller artists talk about they aren't coming back here because of the terrible tour numbers. I think our venues don't promote them enough and are hurting our chances for them to come back.

paul

Depends on the band.some of the guys are 30-40 years old and still do it.
Ironically enough, the bands that NEVER come this way are the biggest ones i want to see. You know, Iron Maiden has not played in Florida since the late 1990s? Dio's only played in Tampa bay twice in the past decade or so, too.

[T_money419]

I think that while the whole situation sucks for music artists, it is up to them and the record companies to find new ways to sell their music. If an artist's music is worth buying, then they'll find a way to sell it. I think the days of Britney Spears and Beyonce debuting at number 1 because of a few hit music videos on an otherwise shitty album are numbered. As for cd sales not directly affecting an artist's paycheck, I think that's not entirely true. Tons of bands sold millions of copies and ended up broke because they didn't get a dime from the royalties(look at black sabbath in the 70s and Queen)however, those bands got awesome touring support from the record company and lots of freedom considering the recording process.
On the flipside, if a band makes the best album of the year and doesn't sell more than a million copies because of everyone downloaded it, they arn't going to get all of the benefits from the record company that come along with selling multi platinum albums.
Regardless, I download tons of stuff because that way I can spend my money on guitars! I find a lot of the stuff that I dl is stuff that I wouldn't have bought otherwise like live albums and to avoid being seen with a Fergie cd in the lineup at futureshop

[Scott]

I don't see any reason to download songs off of limewire and the likes with MySpace and Itunes out there.

Itunes, of course lets you download as many songs off an album as you want. It also lets you preview every song on the album. The only excuse anyone has to download off limewire is to not have to pay for the song/album.

Some people, like Nick for example, don't use Itunes because of the quality it is presented in. That's fine. But that shouldn't prevent you from using it to preview the songs, and then decide if it's worth it to buy the album.


And the whole "art should be free" argument is complete bullshit. In a perfect world, everything would be free and everyone would get along. Sadly, that's not the case. And to think that artists don't need/deserve to make money off of their albums is just...ugh. Grow up.

[jaredowty]

Originally Posted by Scott

And the whole "art should be free" argument is complete bullshit. In a perfect world, everything would be free and everyone would get along. Sadly, that's not the case. And to think that artists don't need/deserve to make money off of their albums is just...ugh. Grow up.

Agreed. Though, there's another level of bullshit when it comes to buying CDs, because the record labels whore their way to get most of the profits whereas the artists, who are responsible for everything in the first place, get ripped off. However, no artists = no label. Eventually a group of artists will strike against the record companies and find a way to exploit their music themselves, which is becoming more and more possible as we go into the future.

So, I guess I'll stop getting CDs burned for me and I'll stop burning them for other people. I just wish my computer didn't suck so much so that I could purchase individual songs off the net. After all, I plan to enter the music industry after high school, so I better start learning some values now.

[josh821]

Originally Posted by Chris

The point you're missing Josh is that while it's a great idea for all art to be free, recording an album is NOT free. Being an audio engineer is an art form. Do you plan to work for free? If you expect to get paid to engineer someone else's music (the artist), and at the same time don't care if that artist gets paid, I hate to break it to you but you will have a very short lived career.

I don't think I'm missing anything because recording an album can be incredibly cheap if not free. It's not just the whole downloading music thing that has changed it's also music production. It's rare to find a band that doesn't have some sort of ProTools rig even if it's just an MBox hookup. Hell, you can get DAWs that rival ProTools in quality as freeware even. If you can afford to buy a guitar and amp (which people do well before they try to make a living in music) you can put out a couple hundred dollars to purchase a few mics that are decent enough to get a sound that anyone who's not an audiophile will think is great. Sure it takes a little extra work but the tradeoff is that you can actually record your music extremely cheap and still have it sound quite nice.

Even if you don't wanna take a month or so to familiarize yourself with recording there are tons of people with home/pro studios that charge insanely cheap rates now (as low as $20/hour I've seen for people with loads of outboard gear even). My cousin's band which consists of all unemployed people who have no money from music have managed to get recordings done at that price and they sound great.

That's pretty much what I expect to do. I wouldn't expect to make a living off of it, at least not a good one, but to keep up with the times I'll just get into things like live sound too (like bands, who need to play a lot of shows to make up for CDs not being easy to sell).

Originally Posted by Chris

I agree with this. However, in order to play shows, you need to have a product to get you in the door. To sell merchandise, you have to have fans. To publish your material, you need material to actually have published. And all of that costs a good deal of money. Nobody's going to care how great your songs are if they sound like shit.

People have been making demos on their own money to get shows since at least the early 80s, that's nothing different. In fact you don't even need a demo to play a lot of places. You have to have fans to do ANYTHING in music and you obtaining fans can be done in many many many ways besides making CDs. For instance, making MP3s available all over the internet and playing shows are a good way to get people to hear you and like you, then you have fans, then you can sell your merchandise. And I think I covered the publishing issue when I described how you can cheaply/freely create material.

Originally Posted by Scott

And the whole "art should be free" argument is complete bullshit. In a perfect world, everything would be free and everyone would get along. Sadly, that's not the case. And to think that artists don't need/deserve to make money off of their albums is just...ugh. Grow up.

Right, but I'm not talking about a perfect world or everything to be free but in our current world there are in fact things that are free. It's not that crazy to think that art should be one of them since, like I've said, it can be made extremely cheap/free and still be of good quality. Maybe when we needed a million physical CDs to have a million different people own our music I would agree that it shouldn't be free, but now you don't need any physical material at all to have millions of people with a copy of your music. And if you're an artist should you be creating your art to express yourself or to make money off of it? Making money from the art you put it can be a nice bonus, but you shouldn't NEED that money to feel satisfied with what you're doing. If that were the case a lot of great painters and whatnot would have stopped creating beautiful things early on and we'd never have discovered them (as in people who got famous after their deaths).

It might actually be more immature to want to force back change because it's more comfortable for you if things stay the same.

[Chris]

And if you're an artist should you be creating your art to express yourself or to make money off of it? Making money from the art you put it can be a nice bonus, but you shouldn't NEED that money to feel satisfied with what you're doing.

That's absurd. People want to make careers out of music. Making a demo CD for a few friends and making a CD to hopefully sell a million albums are not even remotely similar.

You say art should be free, and in the same breath you talk about DAW's and protools rigs. How about the actual production? The mastering? Printing the albums themselves, not to mention distribution? If you're going to give away your album at shows, you need to actually have the album. And (hey!) that costs money.

Even if you don't wanna take a month or so to familiarize yourself with recording there are tons of people with home/pro studios that charge insanely cheap rates now (as low as $20/hour I've seen for people with loads of outboard gear even).

And how many hours does it take to release a 10 song album? Have you ever been in a studio with a full band? Even at $20 an hour (which is a supremely low figure) you're still looking at thousands of dollars out of pocket for a full album JUST FOR THE RECORDING.

People have been making demos on their own money to get shows since at least the early 80s, that's nothing different.

Playing clubs and playing arena dates and actually touring are two very different things. If you're taking 6 months to tour the world with your band, you need to ship gear, hire techs, pay for planes and hotels, the list goes on. If you're not flying, you need a bus, or at the very least a van, and if you're playing an arena I'm sorry but your nice Recto stack isn't exactly "all you need". All that stuff is expensive dude. You're looking at it from the garage band perspective. People with careers in music (those are who we're talking about here, who are affected by pirating music) NEED to make a living to pay for their mortgates, kids college funds, etc WHILE they're on tour. Your free art isn't going to get you a plane ticket to New York to play Madison Square Garden with all of your gear in tow.

If you think that you can just toss your PodXT into freeware software and make a product that will hit the shelves in Tower Records, you're either out of your mind, or you're Bulb.

[zimbloth]

Honestly who buys a Frank Gamble t-shirt? Sorry I just thought that was funny.

Anyways, I agree piracy can hurt artists, I also agree if you like an album you downloaded, you have an obligation to buy it for the reasons Chris and others have covered above. Since I always do the right thing, I will continue to download albums. I've spend spent thousands of dollars on CDs which I never would have purchased if not for hearing the album first. There's always some cheapasses out there, but in general most people I know will buy the CDs of albums they like.

I also think the whole "support the artist, fuck the label" thing is silly. It's important for people to buy the albums when they come out, things like chart positions and whatnot, can give the band you love leverage and help them get better deals, better support, etc... even if they don't see much money from the actual sales.

[josh821]

Originally Posted by Chris

That's absurd. People want to make careers out of music. Making a demo CD for a few friends and making a CD to hopefully sell a million albums are not even remotely similar.

You say art should be free, and in the same breath you talk about DAW's and protools rigs. How about the actual production? The mastering? Printing the albums themselves, not to mention distribution? If you're going to give away your album at shows, you need to actually have the album. And (hey!) that costs money.



And how many hours does it take to release a 10 song album? Have you ever been in a studio with a full band? Even at $20 an hour (which is a supremely low figure) you're still looking at thousands of dollars out of pocket for a full album JUST FOR THE RECORDING.



Playing clubs and playing arena dates and actually touring are two very different things. If you're taking 6 months to tour the world with your band, you need to ship gear, hire techs, pay for planes and hotels, the list goes on. If you're not flying, you need a bus, or at the very least a van, and if you're playing an arena I'm sorry but your nice Recto stack isn't exactly "all you need". All that stuff is expensive dude. You're looking at it from the garage band perspective. People with careers in music (those are who we're talking about here, who are affected by pirating music) NEED to make a living to pay for their mortgates, kids college funds, etc WHILE they're on tour. Your free art isn't going to get you a plane ticket to New York to play Madison Square Garden with all of your gear in tow.

If you think that you can just toss your PodXT into freeware software and make a product that will hit the shelves in Tower Records, you're either out of your mind, or you're Bulb.

If you think you have to sell millions of albums and play Madison Square Garden to make a living doing music, THAT's absurd.

Production, already covered that, mastering, falls into the same category, printing CDs, we're talking about downloading music, you don't have to print CDs anymore.

Pro Tools and an MBox, $400, nowhere near a huge investment. Or get a decent $250 interface and check out Reaper.

You can do 2 songs in 12 hours mixed and semi-mastered. I've spent 5 months working at 2 different commercial studios that do major label artists in NYC and this was a very common thing. That's $1250 about. Or you can take $1000 bucks get some basic gear and record the stuff yourself whenever you want. It shouldn't be that hard if it's split between maybe 5 people in a band. You know Sublime recorded most of 40oz's on a 4 track right? So quality can definitely be achieved this way.

If you're popular enough to play big arenas the you're popular enough to sell enough merchandise/publishing to cover the costs. You shouldn't need more than your amps/guitars/effects to play an arena either. Are you telling me that arenas don't have their own PAs?

You don't have to get your CD in Tower Records, that's the whole idea behind downloading music. You don't need a physical CD. Thanks for bringing up BULB though because that's a great example of someone who get a quality sound without expensive equipment. I mean, he said he mixes through a pair of headphones, c'mon.

Basically I think you're considering making a living in music to be the same as being a superstar. They're very different. My old roommate was a jazz drummer in NYC and played shows with various people every other night and because he was good and played a lot he made a nice living that way. He did recordings for people for free and did some where he was paid a flat rate. In other words, he didn't get royalties when he recorded and he wasn't a superstar BUT he still made a living.

EDIT: I forgot, we also weren't talking about making a living from doing music, we were talking about whether musicians need/deserve money from CDs to make music.

[Chris]

We're talking about both, and how you fail to realize that your theory of "I am an anarchist and art should be free" is, in my opinion, off the mark.

Bulb's an anomaly. How many people have you heard out there that can pull off what he does? My answer to that question is zero. If you think all you need is a Pod and some software to get his mixes, I'd like to hear you have a go at it.

If you think you have to sell millions of albums and play Madison Square Garden to make a living doing music, THAT's absurd.

It is, eh? How many bands do you think get billed along with Metallica because they "sell lots of shirts" or "are very popular on limewire"? You're contradicting yourself. Your argument is that art should be free, and that if it isn't, people can just pop down to Guitar Center and pickup a $500 MBox and churn out studio quality albums. The average band isn't made up of studiophiles, and you can't honestly argue "I pirate your music because you guys didn't bother to learn to track, record, mix and master on your own".

You shouldn't need more than your amps/guitars/effects to play an arena either.

Right. And you don't need guitar techs, road crews, food, transportation, airfare, hotel fare and spare gear in case your rig dies either by your logic. Just me and my Pod, crankin' it out to 60,000 people?

You don't have to get your CD in Tower Records, that's the whole idea behind downloading music.

No, you don't. And there's a medium for that. Services like iTunes, but you don't use those either because you're an anarchist, and artists have the audacty to actually expect you to pay for their art.

Basically I think you're considering making a living in music to be the same as being a superstar. They're very different. My old roommate was a jazz drummer in NYC and played shows with various people every other night and because he was good and played a lot he made a nice living that way. He did recordings for people for free and did some where he was paid a flat rate. In other words, he didn't get royalties when he recorded and he wasn't a superstar BUT he still made a living.

No, I'm considering making a living in music as making a modest living in music where you can afford a house, insurance, a retirement plan, a savings account for you and your wife, and a college fund for your kids. Being a session musician is a different animal than being part of a band. The session musician doesn't need to worry about anything. He gets paid to show up, pick up an instrument, play and go home. The individual success of whatever band he's playing for doesnt' mean anything to him it's just a paid gig. If the band flops, he's no worse off, because he's already on to the next paying gig.

Now, since he's an artist, shouldn't he be playing those sessions for free?

[Paul Warren]

Originally Posted by josh821

Sorry for the long post but I'm somewhat of an anarchist and have pretty strong feelings on this topic. Having money be in control of art just means suffocation of creativity to me.

Heh heh, I don't think we'd agree on much then. What you're describing is, to me, the suffocation of art in general. If people cannot sell their art as a product, many will not do it, at least for very long. It would eventually become "well, I've got eat, I guess I better do something else that will make me money." Not everybody can have a 9-5 job, persue the music thing on the side and still have time to tour etc. Money is exactly what has given us much more choice with art, whether you see that as good or bad. I know one thing I always do each time we have a special guest artist. I thank the people in the crowd for making it possible to bring an artist like that around so we can all benefit from it. Money makes it possible to have art where it may not exist and by making it a business, you are financially able to bring that very art to more people.

And if art should be accessible to everybody as you say, the why would you stop with the cds? I find it odd that you think the music should be free, yet it's ok for the same artist to sell tickets, merch and make money off of publishing? That's making money directly off of their art. Why is one ok as a product and the other isn't? Or is it just the ease of downloading which makes it easier to justify? Wouldn't selling tickets and merch bring the same "pressures" to bear on them to produce more and more music so they can make more and more money? Isn't that the exact issue you were saying is a problem?

On a side note, I had a guitar teacher who applied to teach for us a while back who was an anarchist and who thought all profits were evil. Why in the world would he want a job where we make a profit off of the consumer then, LOL? I'm not saying you think that way, but it was just a funny thing for him to believe, I thought. Anarchists need jobs too though, so I guess they have to sacrifice that one principle to survive.

From your latest post, I see that you're now talking about whether cds should be free and whether or not the artist deserves money from them. If it has a pricetag on it, then there you go. Cut and dry. Those musicians who choose to sell their art can do so and those who want to make it free can do so. But we as the consumers can't decide "hmmm, I'm going to take yours even though you put a pricetag on it".

Interesting read so far..

paul