Friday, May 23, 2003

Merch - boy, do we have some cool hats for sale this year, designed by a local Santa Fean snowboarder/designer. I had to snag one for myself already....They will only become available on our web site after the tour... 8:43:30 AM    comment []; Comments I get the impression that the artist gives up any choice they might have when dealing with the major labels. Matt Callahan • 5/21/03; 1:25:25 PM That depends on the deal he/she made, and on the quality of his/her manager and attorney. It's a game and there are rules and any artist entering the game needs to educate himself about how the game is played and what could happen. Some of your ideas are worth fighting for. I had to fight to make "The Hours between Night + Day" as long as it is, and to make "Opium" a double CD instead of two single CDs released a year apart. In other areas I lost.......You win some and you loose some. It should be up to the artist. For artists who choose not to choose, the their cd's should be left alone. The music is the ARTIST'S "property." Record exec.s are too greedy to be involved in the decisions! Carolynn • 5/21/03; 1:28:20 PM Actually, according to most of the contracts, the recording itself (The Master) is owned by the record company, not the artist. And if the artist has chosen to make a publishing deal, the publisher does the administering of the music and thereby controls the publishing....which leaves....? I think a lot of artists get duped into signing away their music rights in order to be signed by a label. Look at what happened to the Beatles. Michael Jackson ended up owning their music, which is a shame really. dave • 5/21/03; 1:41:14 PM You sign away rights in order to get money. In my case I was looking for independence and that meant building my own studio. A professional studio in 1994 was very expensive, because digital audio recording was in its infancy and wasn't really a choice. Analog mixing consoles are where a lot of the money goes. I paid around $160,000 for my mixing board in 1994 and sold it last year for $20,000 - mainly because everybody has jumped to digital.....Another reason people sign away rights is that managers always try to make big money upfront deals for their artists, because they receive a percentage of the gross. In other words, because I don't know how long this temperamental artist will keep me on before I get fired, I will sell his publishing for a tempting cash sum, pocket 20% of the money the day the deal gets signed and be ready to walk away. On the other hand artists who don't know what's going on must be living in their own drug-induced world and I can only imagine the horror of waking up one day and finding that you don't own anything you do.....Yes, I sold my publishing in 1991 for a very handy sum, yes 20% went to my manager - but I also built a studio in which I have recorded a lot of albums since 1994. And if you look on the back of my CDs, since Little Wing I own all of my publishing again....And starting with "In the Arms of Love" I also own my Masters. It took me 12 years to get to this place, but I had my eye on that the whole time. A last thought on this subject: I think it is a often a poker game. The record company clearly has the upper hand and most artists enter deals that are questionable, but if the artist rises in popularity and sells a lot of product he gets better cards and often can get stuff back from the label.....David Bowie owns most of his masters, so do the Rolling Stones etc...... 8:06:57 AM    comment []; Studio Update - ProTools is working on the G4 Dual 1.25GHz now. The problem was that one of the two process cards was faulty. While it is being exchanged the system works as a HD2 system with one core card and one process card. However, Magma is not working. Apparently there are 7 other producers with 17" PowerBooks who bought Magma chassis and they are for some reason not compatible. Magma is working with Apple to address the issue, because it is obvious that this is what people want - a great mobil unit. The screen of the 17" laptop is big enough to comfortably edit on and packs enough power to run the whole system with ease. At least I am up and running now.... 7:04:53 AM    comment [];

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