I am currently in London and have been here for a month. I have seen 38 artists in 14 different venues in that time. Talking to artists and bands in this time has given me a wonderful understanding of at least what is happening in London on the music scene. The main situation that has hit me in the face is the fact that most bands I have talked to are not looking to go the major label route at least not at the beginning. A good majority seem to be going down the D.I.Y route of recording a single or album and putting a CD out themselves on their own label and hoping to go on from this to hopefully bigger and better things. However there appears to be a number of big drawbacks when doing this. Artists I have spoken to do seem to have budgeted fairly well in relation to the recordings but there seems to be a few problems and i'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the following. 1. The artist has decided that to keep costs down that they have decided to self - produce the material themselves and in the majority of cases (not all) I have felt that the artist has suffered quite badly due to this in both quality of recordings and in production ideas. 2. The artist has either dismissed the idea of going to a proper mastering studio due to lack of funds or lack of understanding of how their recordings could be enhanced by this professional process or worse still have attempted to master the recordings themselves. 3. The artist has not taken into consideration that there should be a marketing and promotion package and have neglected this entirely or they are only putting a small amount into these priceless process. I always felt that an artist putting together an album anywhere from a budget of £1000 to £20000 should ensure that their budget for marketing should be at the very least 30% of the total. Therefore their CD has not been as successful as they wished. What do you guys think? Are you an artist that has faced this predicament? Any suggestions to help other artists? Please let me know and have a safe time. Best regards, Richard

Hi Richard When I was recording and producing records for bands I always suggested that they split their budget into 1/3 recording 1/3 manufacturing/artwork 1/3 promotion As far as possible it is also a great idea to pre place stock before you manufacture say for instance if you gig regularly to place a box of 25 CDs in 40 venues/shops etc Of course now its much easier to manufacture 100 at a time on CDR as the quality acheiveable is so good. Problem with that is that promo copies are at a premium and cost a lot more per unit

Guys, I'd like to know your opinion on artists who in recent times have modeled a strategy around home production and then distributing online. Do you think its working in the west?? Because it sure seems to be going that way in India?? I think it cuts costs in approaching the market and getting a feeler. What do you think??

Hello Sudhir, from my experience - no. Home production and self distribution is not going to work - except for a limited number of copies. It's not the problem to get something published nowadays - the problem is to get *recognized*, and since it's so chep now to produce something, more and more music becomes available what makes it even harder to get recognized. These self marketing platforms or musician communities have a drawback that noone seems to recognize - it's a pool of sellers solely, everyone wants to sell there, but hardly anyone to buy. Whats the point of having a CD(R) or download on, lets say, amazon, if noone knows about it ? I think a professional product and PR has become even more important than ever.

In regards to both Sudhir's and Sania's point I think they are both correct. I could understand why home production and distributing online would work in India as it is an emerging and developing market and yes Sudhir it would cut costs in the sense of at least having an Indian artist's release online which to all intents and purposes is better than no release at all and a huge step forward for new artists in India. However Sania makes some extremely good points and I have to agree with her that everyone can get 'published' but getting yourself 'recognised' is now the biggest problem. To get recognised you need to be promoted and marketed correctly whatever your budget may be for your release which is why artists should sit down and come out with a decent marketing campaign plan or they are doomed for failure. The problem is the market is absolutely saturated with artists these days from every walk of life from every single part of the world offering every single type of music and there seems to be little in the way of sifting through this deluge of artists which indirectly leads to the realisation that A&R people are now important than ever and worth their weight in gold. A comparison I could make is a site for the film industry reviewing new cinema releases called Rotten Tomatoes http://www.rottentomatoes.com/movie/box_office.php which you can check out. If you speak to new artists with their first song on Itunes they are always incredibly excited and so they should be as they selling their art so to speak for the first time. It is only when it dawns on the majority of them that after 4 weeks of the track being available only and only 6 people have put their hand in their pocket to buy it that they realise that maybe they won't be an overnight success after all. Sadly reality bites.