Audio Recording

This is an ideal path for those that are:

1.) Business savvy songwriters that are planning to make money from the song copyrights through music publishing and licensing.

2.) At the same time, interested in creating records of those songs in the catalog through the use of home recording studio. In this case, since you are the one creating the recording versions of your own song, you also own the song recording copyrights.

But the road will be tough because of some complex issues and skills that the independent music producer/publisher will be dealing with to succeed.

Required skills for a publisher/producer role

1.) The songwriter/publisher needs to acquire strong knowledge in music publishing fundamentals. You should know how to succeed in your own independent music publishing business. This includes the songwriter to be good at understanding the principle of copyrights, the type of rights to be exploited in a song (performance right, mechanical rights, printed rights, etc.).

Beware of the most common copyright mistakes to avoid in music production, music publishing and songwriting.

2.) Since the publisher is dealing with the creative side of music. It is required that he/she knows technically the aspect of songwriting and has an ear of spotting great songs. One of the important factors of a music publisher is to be able to predict hit songs in advance or before it will be released commercially. If the publisher is good at this, he/she will be able to provide a substantial source of royalty income if several of the songs in the catalog become future hits.

Below are some helpful tutorials on this topic for a publisher and a producer:

6 most proven hit songwriting tips
Essential recording producer skill sets

3.) One of the most challenging sets of skills are the “administration”, “marketing” and “business” aspect of music publishing. The administration aspect is responsible for managing the catalog, keeping copyright records, licensing records and everything about documentation. You can refer to the following useful articles for details:

How to organize your Music Catalog- A Songwriter and Publisher Guide
Marketing your Music: Online Guide for every Indie Musician
Music Artist Marketing Plan: How to become a successful music artist?

The marketing aspect of music publishing is the promotion of catalog to the targeted audiences. In this way, the music publisher may need to acquire new contacts for which she/he pitches the music. It is also possible the music publisher will set up an online music store which clients can listen and download music.

The business aspect deals with managing the financial account of the music publishing business. In this case, the music publisher will be dealing with a variety of cost in doing business as well as assessing the profitability of his/her catalog or even budget on acquiring music recording equipments.

4.) Since at the same time, he/she produces the song in the catalog; it is required that she/he has strong working knowledge in music production. This includes the knowledge in the following areas:

a. Tracking using a recording software – how to record instruments using recording software in a personal computer.

b. Knowledge on recording equipment’s – it is required that the producer also knows how to operate a basic mixer, equalizer, sound card and connect studio monitors to the computer.

c. Audio mixing – once all tracks are well recorded using multi-track recording software, it is important that you can mix the tracks to give its unique and professional sound.

d. Audio Mastering– this is in preparation for CD production and compressing tracks to meet the broadcast quality sound standards.

This blog contains a lot of tutorials on audio mixing and mastering, you can check out the blog categories as shown in the sidebar.
So if you find it difficult to do all the above tasks, you can always hire someone to do it for you. With this be ready to spend some cash to invest in your projects. As you can see; the path of being an independent music publisher and a producer is not always very simple and easy to do.

Most Useful Advice for Long term success

1.) There is no short term success in this career. Most independent publishers/producers would typically reached success after 10 years. If you want to be successful within the five years, this is not a realistic goal unless you are super-rich and want to delegate/hire/form a team of capable professionals that would perform the above tasks. You are still an entrepreneur, you accept risk and you still have to manage your team to success.

2.) Hit songs are your most powerful asset. You should spend all of your time and effort in cultivating at least one proven hit. Do not forget that you are still a songwriter despite all the business that you make.

3.) Ignore rejections and keep going. In this industry; these are very normal. No reason to turn back, keep focused.

4.) Don’t spend all of your money in music business, at least you would want to spend at least 5% of it (assuming you can bear this loss if not, keep it even smaller like 1%). Then let the 5% grow exponentially (re-invest). This is a sure proof against bankruptcy and let you run your business forever.

5.) Never give up but continually improve by learning your mistakes.