William Morton wrote:We can record great quality music at home thanks to digital technology and spread it like the plague on the net if we put the time in. Everyone sorts their own gigs and plays for fuck-all. Adverts etc. in (good) magazines are just a matter of £ (providing you're atleast serious with the music). Why do bands need to sign record deals? And whats the deal with distribution? How does it work? Extreme metal bands are never expecting big £ anyway so why have middle men?

...Just trying to demystify the process with your help I guess...

Yes

My opinion is if you tour enough and have a fan base you really should'nt need to be on a label. You can sell the cd at gigs. Which is even better for the fans as there usually quite cheap.

I reckon bands like Waste could do it easy. I had never saw Scotty the merch dude for waste work so hard in my life, the shirts where flying off him and my own experiences with Impaled/Ghoul are the same.

Being on a label can help ie more promotion etc, but it usually means a bigger cut for the label or they get fucked over when 'x' amount of cds have'nt been sold.

It all depends on the moment, I know a band that really want to get off a label but still owe them one more album and imho they would be better.

More bands are just licensing albums these days. Ie the label owns the rights to the album until x amount of time has past then it goes back to the bands.

Its a tricky one

Berith wrote:It depends a lot on the deal, I spose...and the contacts of the Label.

Look at what Evile have achieved with their signing to Earache.
What you dont wanna do is sign to some fucking ripoff label that doesnt do its job.

But with a deal youll get worldwide distribution, miles more efficient than sending a "demo" or any music of an unsigned band to mags everywhere. This is done for you, in thousands. Labels often have a "name" worldwide, so just that stamp of there will say much more than some grim immage on a crappy CDr of a band named Iron Satan.

In the studio you will get professional work done. However good you reckon you are at home mixing etc, these people will have the actual know-how to capture what you want exactly how you want, even beyond.
What you could do among the 4-5 of you, they can do a thousand times better. They are a business and if they have any idea what they're doing, theyll get money, and eventually get you money (as limited as metal-income may be)
In the end youre in it to spread your music and play some killer shows.

Thus Defiled have made it nowhere with a no-record deal policy....so I guess its just how serious and how far you want to go.

Then again, theres no point singing to you neighbors label in Norwich

Hmm. Bored. Possibly?

Yeah but Thus Defiled also release their stuff on their own label with distribution amongst all the high street retailers and they also managed to record their latest album in Texas and get it mixed and mastered by James Murphy so i guess they made a few right moves somewhere along the line. Being signed aint the be all and end all, don't forget that advance you got for your shiny new gear and the thousands of cd's that got pressed for your debut and follow up releases was paid for by the label and they're gonna want it back. That's why the pressure to deliver is on straight away to sell tons of cd's as soon as you release it coz the label will want their money asap. It's even more difficult in todays day and age with more folk preferring to download stuff than actually go and buy it on cd. I reckon it's far better to just save yer cash and do it outta your own pocket, be it releasing your own stuff or doing a split with someone.

I love my crappy CDR by Iron Satan! Berith I think you've inadvertantly come up with the best band name ever!

I like mazz

mmm, yeah... It's a tough one in this changing musical environment with downloads n'all. It's almost as if a 'deal' means you've made it - that your proper now, but we all know that a musician shouldn't really see it that way. it depends what percentage is music and what percentage is art in your head and how that fits in with your self esteem.

Personally speaking I am 100% happy with my own ability to record what I want to hear for Jekazol, but then again I do use alot of pre-programmed backing at present and that makes it easier to do - although all the high-tech shit on planet earth ain't gonna give you the ability to write a catchy song. So I'm asking: what ? who do I chase?.. what should I do with it? When should I be happy?

Some really great and intelligent responses there guys. Thanks.

Iron Satan? Great band name!
Some one should use that...

No one needs a label. if you want to play good gigs to a good bunch of kids that actually give a fuck and put out your music theres no need for a deal.

Having a record deal may mean someone will loan you some money for you to put out a release maybe a video and some magazine promotion which may inturn help you to play some big shows, if you want that its great and a label can certainly help, ive got nothing against bands being on labels. If you wanna do music as a career a deak obvs helps but itsnt essential if your pretty sharp

In the band im currently in i just wanna release something im proud of, get in some DIY zines and play loads of shows where the kids go off and energy levels are high, dont need a deal for that.

MEAT wrote:can you buy time machines on ebay?

Explain?

MEAT is in SSS.

I remember talking to James Fogarty (the musician who created Ewigkeit), and he said something along the lines of...

"Do everything the DIY way, because one day the playing field will be levelled and these up and coming bands won't stand a chance"

Didn't Twiglet sign to Earache?

MEAT wrote:can you buy time machines on ebay?

This.

terrorizer wrote:Didn't Twiglet sign to Earache?

He did, but I also remember watching a video recently where he set fire to his Earache contracts and started allowing his early releases as free downloads.

Ewigkeit is no more, but James Fogarty is onto another project through his website deathtomusic.com

In the "home vs studio" recording debate, I would echo Berith's comments and say that studios will get the better quality 9 times out of 10.

Having worked in a semi-professional local school studio with pretty decent gear - Behringer digital desk, Mackie analogue desk, Rode NT1 condensers, Shure SM57 & SM58s, Mac G5 running Logic Pro 7 [ more info ] - you would be hard-pushed to get the same quality in a home setup, mainly because home setups use amp emulators (PODs, effects boards etc) to create an amp sound while being plugged direct into the PC and although amp emulators are getting better and some people may swear by them, I would always go for an old-school close-mic'd amp because the sound you get from mic'ing it properly (i.e. one close dynamic, one far condenser, mixed slightly stereo) is just miles better to my ears.

Vocals using an SM58 or similar will sound good in a live setup, but the mics just don't have the quality to capture the frequency ranges of higher-quality condensers (Neumanns, Rodes, ATs, AKGs), same applies for pretty much every single piece of kit in a studio. It may be expensive gear, but you get what you pay for most of the time.

Also, without decent mixing and mastering software, you're pretty limited. A lot of the free stuff is pretty crap compared to stuff like Logic and ProTools (if you don't run Linux, which the majority of people don't) - you don't get the quality compressors, limiters, noise gates, EQs, reverb, chorus and other effects processors that the nice expensive programs give you.

[/ my 2p worth]