Snoman R. Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys, and Techniques

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and you will be expected to pay a percentage towards making it which will be

subtracted from your royalties. That said, it is very doubtful that any record

label would allow you to make a video for more than 10 000 if you’re a rel-

atively new artist and, in some cases, they may insist on a particularly small

video budget – so forget about that video featuring you in the Bahamas sur-

rounded by scantily clad women or men. It’s far more likely you’ll ﬁ nd yourself

in a disused warehouse in a particularly dubious part of town, trying to mime

to a track that’s occasionally drowned out by police sirens.

Again, the percentage you pay towards a video will vary from company to com-

pany but you should insist/negotiate on not paying more than 40% towards it.

What’s more, you should insist/negotiate that no more than 10% of your record-

ings are given away as promotional items. By providing promotional copies to

record stores, a sales team can purchase both shelf and window space, but if you

let them, they’ll give away a huge amount of records to secure a good space in

the window and/or shelves which ultimately results in loss of income for you.

As a word of warning, all major record labels will not allow you to ﬁ nd your

own supplier of CD cases, artwork or pressing plants even if they are cheaper

than the amount being paid by the record company (and, of course, ultimately

you). Whatever the label decides to do, you do not have the opportunity to

audit, and no matter how much the label decides to spend, you’ll have to pay

for it from your own royalties!

More importantly, ensure and then double (and triple) check that some of the

promotional copies are sent to some related magazines before they arrive in the

shops rather than after. Most magazine reviewers will not review a record that

is freely available in the shops, so if they receive them after they are available

they will usually not be reviewed, reducing your potential sales. This is a sur-

prisingly common occurrence and an apology from the label for overlooking

this ‘small problem ’ will not help ﬂ agging sales.

To prevent this from happening, many artists take this into their own hands by

requesting 20 –30 copies of the record before they go into the ﬁ nal manufactur-

ing stage. Often referred to as test pressings (TPs), you can use the excuse that

it allows you to listen to what the mastering engineer has done to your record

and so you can hand out copies to friends and relatives. In truth, you’re send-

ing them out to magazine reviewers yourself to ensure that they receive copies

to review before they’re released in the general market.

One ﬁ nal issue that is vital to fully comprehend is the advance payment. All

record companies, no matter how big or small, should offer an advance on

signing of the contract. This is the label’s proof that they are committed to pro-

moting your record but also that you’re also paid for the work.

You shouldn’t expect a sum amounting to millions, similar to those often

reported by the press, apart from often being blown totally out of proportion by

the media – you need to have a long history of best sellers and a remarkable

reputation with the public. For a ﬁ rst release, a label may realistically offer

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between £200 and 5000, depending on the size of the label and how popular

they believe your music is going to be.

Advances are refundable from the proﬁ ts, though, which means that you will not

receive any royalties until the sum total of your royalties from sales have exceeded

the advance. It is worth ensuring that there are no ‘hidden’ clauses in respect of this

advance too, by making sure that it is only recoupable from the proﬁ ts. If they are

not, the label may have the right to recoup the money if they don’t release the track

or if the record does not sell as well as they initially expected it to.

PROMOTION

Once the ﬁ nal details have been accepted by both the company and the artist,

the promotional campaign will start and the recording will hit the shops. The

ﬁ rst 3 months are the most crucial stage; many record companies and shops

will judge the selling potential of the record within this time period. If only a

few copies are sold, it’s very likely that the shop will return them to the record

company and ask for a percentage of what they paid for the record back.

Most of the high-street stores settle for a 25 –50% return rate but many of

the smaller independent shops will demand a 100% return if they can’t sell

it. Consequently, whenever a record is released, all record companies set up

what’s known as a reserve royalty account. This allows the label to withhold

anywhere from 40 to 80% of your net earnings and hand them out over a

2-year period, preventing them from making a loss by paying you too much.

This can cause some substantial problems if you’ve signed more than one

record or a publishing deal since they will view it as one ﬁ nancial deal rather

than a number of individual ones. Thus, if your ﬁ rst release is a failure but the

second or third is a hit, they are within their rights to recoup any losses from

the failures by taking a larger percentage from the hit. In a worst case scenario

this could result in your earning nothing whatsoever.

Ultimately, here we’ve only looked at the most common pitfalls and recording

contracts can contain many more clauses. They are a tedious read but it is vital

that you go over every aspect with a good solicitor because if you make a mis-

take now it will stay with you for the rest of your recording career. Also, as you

become more successful, it is advisable to hire a good manager to take care of

everything for you, so you can continue making music rather than dealing with

all the paperwork. Until you have a manager, it’s almost certainly worth joining

the Musicians ’ Union as they can offer solid advice relating to both contracts

and publishing deals. They can be contacted at: www.musiciansunion.org.uk .

The MCPS can be contacted at: www.mcps.co.uk .

The PRS can be contacted at: www.prs.co.uk .

The PPL can be contacted at: www.ppluk.com .

The PAMRA can be contacted at: www.pamra.org.uk .

The AURA can be contacted at: www.aurauk.com .

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INDEPENDENT RELEASE

While sending off a demo to a record label is still viewed by many as the

best way to get your recording released in the general market, actually being

accepted by a label is becoming increasingly difﬁ cult. Indeed, many labels will

not entertain the idea of signing an artist with no previous history of releases,

and even if they are willing to sign you, they pretty much have all the bargain-

ing power giving them the freedom to dictate much of the contract you’ll be

expected to sign.

Consequently, an increasing number of musicians are releasing their singles

independently. This does mean that it’s you who has to do all the legwork

involved, from sorting out the artwork and distribution along with incurring

all the costs, but if you expect a record label to have the faith in you and put its

time, money and effort into it then why shouldn’t you be conﬁ dent enough to

do it for yourself?

Releasing your own music isn’t as complicated or difﬁ cult as many are led

to believe, and although it does take some ﬁ nancial capital to get it off the

ground, any earnings are yours to keep. Additionally, if it does well, it also

means that you have a history of a release giving you some bargaining power if

you ever decide to sign to a record label.

Over recent years CDs have invariably become the ultimate format on which

to record and distribute music. They’re cheap and easily available, and while

many DJs are now turning to this format, alongside MP3 – to allow them to

remix, and remix using software such as Ableton Live – to the same amount

of DJs, vinyl turntables are the deﬁ nitive system to play dance music on. So

much so that many DJs will not take a dance mix that arrives on a CD seri-

ously. Apart from the fact that it doesn’t particularly show any ‘real commit-

ment to the scene ’, vinyl reproduces the lower frequencies much better than a

CD. This obviously means that if the music is bass driven, as dance music is,

vinyl is always going to be the number one choice for dance.

This does, however, pose some problems if you’ve mixed down with CD in

mind because there’s a tendency to overcompensate to create a deep bass. If this

is then pressed to vinyl, the bass can be so loud that the stylus can skip along

the record. What’s more, the louder the bass the wider the groove needs to be

on the record, which can force you to reduce the overall length of the track.

Broadly speaking, a typical dance record with a heavy bass should be no lon-

ger than 10 min at 33 RPM or 8 min at 45 RPM. It is possible to go a minute or

so longer than this at both speeds but it may result in a drop of volume or, in

some cases, distortion in the high-frequency elements.

At the beginning of a record the outer circumference of the groove is around

36⬘ ⬘, but as it continues towards the centre it continually reduces in size until

it reaches around 13 ⬘ ⬘. This means that as the record progresses there is less

and less space to hold all the frequencies, so the audio quality will reduce

commonly introducing distortion in the higher frequencies. Consequently, it’s

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sensible to avoid boosting any frequencies above 8 KHz while also rolling off

everything above 16 KHz. It’s also worth running any high-frequency sounds

through a good de-esser while mixing for extra security. Both these techniques

have to be applied cautiously, though, as once the mix has been committed to

vinyl there’s no going back if it’s wrong. Therefore, I strongly advise that if you

want to submit a mix to vinyl, you send it to a professional mastering house.

Although we’ve already covered the general principles behind mastering in the

previous chapter, without a doubt, there is absolutely no substitute for employ-

ing a professional mastering engineer. Even though there are numerous pro-

grams available that promise to produce ‘professional’ results, which some can,

none of them replace a mastering engineer’s experience and ears.

These guys have years of experience behind them and will not only give a dif-

ferent perspective on your music which you may not have considered but also

make sure it’s mixed correctly for vinyl. On top of this, there may be no need

to adjust a mix that’s been prepared for a CD, it can just be sent to the mas-

tering house as it is. That said, it is worth checking with the mastering house

before you send any material as they may need the CD prepared in a particu-

lar way. Also, you should include all important details such as track numbers,

the length of each song in minutes and the total length of a side including the

pauses between the tracks, provided there is more than one.

Most mastering houses today will accept CD in data form often called pre

master compact disc (PMCD) but they will also accept Exabyte, U-matic 1630

and perhaps DAT. This latter medium is becoming less popular as a recording

standard as many reputable mastering engineers do not consider this to be of

a high-enough standard. This is because DAT can suffer from drop-outs and

other tape-related problems that can make the mastering engineer’s job even

more difﬁ cult which can result in one of the following two:

1. They’ll charge you a hefty sum of money to ‘repair’ the problem on site.

2. They’ll charge you for the time they’ve spent listening to the DAT before

deciding that they have to return it to you.

The prices mastering houses charge vary from plant to plant but at the time of

writing a typical price for mastering and preparing two tracks (remember there’s

usually a B side!) is around £250 –400, depending on the reputation of the mas-

tering engineer and plant involved. On the subject of a B side to the record, it’s a

wise idea to use this for the instrumental version and include plenty of exposed

segments consisting of just the drum loops, along with instrumental riffs and

vocals. This way you open up more options for the record:

■ If the A side does incredibly well, it will not only increase the demand for

it but also allow any producers to remix the record to promote it further.

■ If the A side does poorly, a producer or well-known DJ may decide to

remix it using the elements included on the B side, increasing its chances

of becoming a hit record. If it does well, a label will look to sign it and

you’ll receive royalties for every sale – a very proﬁ table venture.

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■ A producer may drop different vocals over the top of the B side which

could promote the record further.

Once the track has been mastered, the plant will often return a copy of the

master back to you in a format that you request, allowing you to verify the

quality but this copy should not be sent to the pressing plant. The master-

ing engineer will, or at least should, have recorded the mastered version onto

Exabyte or U-matic 1630 which is then sent directly from the mastering house

to the pressing plant to produce the record. This is because the quality required

to produce the ‘glass master ’ must be of an excellent quality and CD or DAT

are not of a high-enough standard. This does, of course, depend on the press-

ing plant involved and some will accept these lesser quality formats simply to

get their hands on your money.

Glass masters are so called because they are destroyed during the production

process. After the recording has been copied onto the glass master it can be

transferred onto a stamper, a round metal form that is then used to process the

lacquer to produce the ﬁ nal record. This glass/stamper/lacquer process gener-

ally costs around £95 per side but, as always, the prices will vary from company

to company.

Once this is completed, the plant will press a small amount of records known

as TPs to give you the idea of how the ﬁ nished product will sound. Again, these

are not free and you’ll be expected to pay anything from £2 to 4 per TP. Many

plants will refuse to make just one TPS, insisting that you have a minimum

of 10. Nevertheless, with these TPs, you can then begin to look towards distri-

bution deals, publishing deals, and more importantly, registering yourself with

the MCPS.

As you’re planning to release records, you’re essentially becoming a record

label, so you should register with the MCPS for a number of reasons. Firstly,

you’ll need to check that no one else is using the name you have decided upon

(you can also search bandname.com). This mistake has been made many times

with the most notable example being made by Chemical Brothers when they

decided to change their name to Dust Brothers. Rather than checking with the

MCPS ﬁ rst, they simply used the name which understandably resulted in the

‘ original’ Dust Brothers being a little more than upset.

Secondly, the MCPS will ensure that your record is copyright protected and

that you receive any mechanical royalties that are due to you. For providing

this service, they are usually paid 8.5% of the total income from every unit

sold. You do not have to pay this if you press and release less than 500 records

(provided that you reach an agreement with them ﬁ rst) or for records that

are used for promotion. These promotional copies must, however, be promi-

nently marked with a non-removable, non-erasable notice carrying the words

‘ PROMOTIONAL COPY – NOT FOR SALE ’ on the sleeve and packaging and the

record itself – you cannot simply just attach this label to the dust jacket. Plus,

of course, they must be supplied free to the DJ, reviewer or club!

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After registering, you can begin to look towards getting a distribution deal

using the 10 or so TPs you’ve received. The reason behind looking for a dis-

tributor now rather than when all the records have been pressed is that you

may be able to secure a pressing and distribution deal. This will depend on the

quality of the record, and if your chosen distributor believes that it has a good

sales potential they may offer to pay 50% towards the price of pressing. This

investment will obviously be recouped by taking a percentage of proﬁ ts from

every sale, along with their distribution percentage and further percentage for

organizing the manufacturing. Though this probably sounds like a poor deal

for you, it is the best deal to make as the distribution company will be heav-

ily motivated to sell your records so that they can recoup their expenditure.

Additionally, they will also be obliged to sort out the bar codes that help record

shops detail their sales, something that is very difﬁ cult to organize yourself.

Many distributors may also want you to sign a contract, giving them exclu-

sive rights to distribute your record for a minimum of 1 year. Although a rela-

tively small press of 2000 records may not sell over this time period, but if they

do, you will be tied to the same distributor until the end of the contract. This

means that you should take your time to ﬁ nd a good one.

Finding a good distributor can make the difference between your record reach-

ing the best independent DJ and high-street shops or ending up with a back-

street dealer frequented by ‘wedding DJs ’. Consequently, it is worth shopping

around, phoning the companies and asking with whom exactly they deal with

and if they have any previous history of distributing ‘hit’ dance records. Typical

questions to ask are:

■ Whom do they distribute to?

■ Have they ever distributed a hit record?

■ Do they have plenty of contacts?

■ Are they in contact with any radio stations, producers or DJs?

■ Are the contactable 24 h a day?

■ What publicity plans, if any, do they have?

■ If you let them distribute the record, when would they plan to release it?

The last question is important in establishing whether they have their ﬁ nger on

the pulse of the music industry. Obviously, you’ll want to release your record as

soon as possible, but if they plan to release it during Christmas or at the same

time as one of their other, more popular, artists then it will be lost in the ﬂ ood

of releases or not receive their utmost attention.

Enthusiasm, faith and an understanding of the music you produce are the most

important qualities of any good distributor, and this is something you should

be able to ascertain after speaking with them for about 10 min.

Remember that it’s your future being placed in their hands, so ask them to

inform you of their release schedules and, assuming that they have heard your

recording, ask what they think of it. A good distributor will not be obsequious

but offer solid advice on the selling points of your music and let you know of

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any ideas they have that may increase its sales potential. The price for all this

commitment is usually around 20 –30% of your earnings but don’t underesti-

mate the power of negotiation. If you adopt a diplomatic attitude, you may be

able to reduce this to 15 –25%. Whatever happens, though, it’s unwise to sign

any contracts allowing them to take over 30% of the income.

If you do not want to become involved with a distributor, preferring to han-

dle it all yourself, then you can use a vinyl broker instead. These companies

are solely concerned with just pressing the vinyl and conﬁ guring the bar codes

and, as they have a good relationship with pressing plants, they can usually get

records pressed cheaper than if you approached a plant yourself.

Assuming that you have a distribution deal or have decided to approach it all

yourself and have approved the quality of the TPs, the plant will continue to

process the amount of records that have been ordered. Generally speaking,

130 g lacquer is the most commonly used for 12 ⬙ records but some plants may

offer 180 g. From experience, this grade produces a heavier bass, a sharper high

end and a clearer stereo image, and suffers from less distortion, but it costs

approximately twice as much.

It is possible to get very good quality from 130 g but you stand a better chance

of quality if the vinyl is virgin and not recycled. A proportionate amount of

pressing plants will use recycled lacquer unless you state otherwise, so it’s

always advisable to ask before you commit yourself.

A typical price for pressing a single 12 ⬙ 130 g record is around 60 pence but very

few plants will press less than 500 and, on average, many will not press less

than 1000 copies at a time. Although many unestablished artists would prefer

to press an initial run of 500 records, the less that are pressed, the more expen-

sive it is and, ideally, you should look to earn enough from pressing records to

ﬁ nance pressing your next release. This means that you’re generally better off

making a minimum press run of 1000 or, if you can afford it, a run of 2000.

Another option that may be open to you is the choice of coloured vinyl, rather

than black. It’s a fact that coloured vinyl sells more copies but it is considerably

more expensive. Blue, red and yellow vinyl can cost as much as £1.50 per unit

while white vinyl or a customized colour can cost in excess of £3 per unit. Bear in

mind, though, that the choice of colour can govern how many records you should

press. Most pressing plants will reduce the price of each unit with the more

records you order, so while it is recommended that you press over 1000 black

records so that you can recoup the money you’re investing, if a different colour is

used you should look at pressing more than 2000 to make them cheaper.

ARTWORK

The very name white label should give some clue as to how much artwork is

involved on the record’s sleeve. A majority of white labels have little more than

the name of the artist and a contact number or, more commonly for a record

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that contains an illegal sample, an e-mail address from an ‘untraceable’ sup-

plier such as googlemail or yahoo.

For obvious reasons, I cannot publically condone the use of illegal samples in

any record but I can say that a proportionate amount of white labels that have

made their way into clubs and onto the charts have contained illegal samples

and by only including an e-mail address you have the option of not replying if

a record company gets in touch to press charges against you.

That said, in a majority of cases if the recording is doing exceptionally well and

the label who owns the original sample believes that it has a big sales poten-

tial, they may wish to release it commercially, but be warned, it gives them the

upper hand when it comes to negotiating a deal.

Many pressing plants will offer to design and print the artwork on your behalf

but this obviously costs extra and it’s usually a better idea to actually supply the

plant with your own artwork. As long as it’s quite simple, the plant will only

charge you a small ‘cover preparation ’ or ‘ﬁ lm charge ’ which is used to prepare

the printers to create the labels, and then charge 3 or 4 pence per label, pro-

vided there are no colours involved. Alternatively, if money is tight, a cheaper

option is to leave the labels from the plant blank, design your own, print them

out and then stick them on the sleeve yourself – if you have the patience to

stick labels on over 1000 records – and it does become incredibly tedious.

Remember that time is money to everyone, including you, so calculate the time

it will take to prepare the labels and balance it against what the pressing plant

may charge – plus the pressing plant will put the labels on ‘straight’, there is

nothing more unnerving than seeing a record spin with an off-centre label.

While a majority of white labels contain little more than the name of the track

and some contact details, a trick employed by some musicians is to design a

label that not only contains these details but also gives the impression that it’s

a special edition import. The ego of many DJs should not be underestimated

and the elitism of owning an ‘import’ can immediately raise the hype so that

DJs are more interested in playing it on the dance ﬂ oor.

Most plants will also give you the option between an inner or an outer sleeve.

An inner sleeve is the thin ‘tracing paper ’ type cover you often ﬁ nd inside normal

record sleeves to protect the vinyl from being scratched by the outer sleeve and

these cost around 6 pence each. The outer sleeve, often referred to as a ‘dust jacket ’

or ‘disco bag ’, is constructed from cardboard; thus, it is more substantial and nor-

mally comes in black only. Obviously, this means that they are more expensive,

costing between 15 and 20 pence each, but they do offer more signiﬁ cant protec-

tion for the vinyl and are preferred by many DJs for transporting their records.

Thus, assuming that you decide to press 2000 copies of your recording and you

have no manufacturing deals, the price so far would be:

■ Mastering: £200 ⫻ 2 ⫽ £ 400

■ Lacquer: £95 ⫻ 2 ⫽ £ 190

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■ TPS: £4 ⫻ 10 ⫽ £ 40

■ Film Charge: £8

■ Labels: 4 pence ⫻ 2000 ⫽ £ 80

■ Dust Jacket: 20 pence ⫻ 2000 ⫽ £ 400

■ Pressing: 60 pence ⫻ 2000 ⫽ £ 1200

■ Total: £2318

Once you’ve received the completed order of vinyl, you’ll need to look into

promoting the single before it hits the record shops. Simply releasing it with-

out any publicity to back it up isn’t going to help it sell as few people will walk

into a record shop and buy a track without knowing anything about it. There

are two options available for this: you can either employ a press company to

deal with it all or attempt to create some press yourself.

In an ideal situation, you would employ a press company. These people, who

often work in league with distributors, have all the contacts needed to publi-

cize your record and will get your name in every magazine or paper that really

matters. To accomplish this, they will ask for a minimum of 100 free copies of

the record so that they can send them out to the people who are important, i.e.

editors and journalists, who will, hopefully, give you rave reviews, increasing

your sales potential when the record ﬁ nally hits the shops. If you do decide to

take this route, then ﬁ nding a good publisher is as vital as ﬁ nding a good dis-

tributor and it is worth shopping around to ﬁ nd a company that deals in the

genre of music you create.

In ﬁ nding a good publishing company, typical questions to ask are:

■ Whom have they dealt with in the past?

■ Which magazines or papers are they in contact with?

■ What are they prepared to do to publicize your record?

■ Will they take out adverts in music papers?

The latter question should result in a resounding no if the press agency is repu-

table as unless you’re an established artist adverts are an absolute waste of time

and money. Employing a publishing company obviously isn’t free and, gener-

ally speaking, it can cost between £500 and 1000.

Whether you decide to use a press company or not, you should seriously con-

sider employing a DJ promotion agency. These form an essential aspect of

dance music promotion and without them it is doubtful that any record will

ever get off the ground. Essentially, they have various lists of clubs and well-

known DJs suited towards the genre of your record – and will mail it directly to

the ones that matter.

Both clubs and DJs get the records for nothing, which means that you have to

supply them for nothing too, but in return they ﬁ ll out reaction sheets that report

how each record is going down on the dance ﬂ oor. This gives you a good idea of

how well the track is doing on the circuit, allowing you to estimate its popularity.

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Obviously, this means that you should go with established agencies that have

the addresses of the best clubs and DJs for the type of music you produce; you

don’t want your records ending up in the hands of wedding and party DJs.

Agencies such as Waxworks or Rush are both well respected (and whom I fully

recommend), as both these have large lists and will advise you on how many

records you should supply them. Obviously, this service is not free and they

charge 2 –3 pounds per record and have a minimum mail-out of a hundred.

They will also expect payment upfront rather than after they’ve been mailed –

just in case you go ‘out of business ’.

It certainly isn’t advisable to miss this stage out in the hope of saving a little

money. Hanging around in clubs in the hope of catching DJs and giving them

a copy is a time-consuming affair, time that could be put to better use writing

another record. Let the professionals handle the promotional aspects.

This brings the price so far to:

■ 2000 130 g black vinyl records, with sleeve and labels: £2258

■ DJ promo agency: £300 and 100 records

■ Total: £2558 and 1900 records

On average, most record shops will pay approximately £2 for a 12 ⬘ ⬘ single,

so provided that you could sell them all, it would equal a proﬁ t of £1442.

Alternatively, if you only pressed 1000 records, the proﬁ t would be consider-

ably lower, equalling around £382. However, while the latter still provides a

proﬁ t, it isn’t much to put towards a second release and also remember that

many record shops operate on a no sale return policy. On top of this, you may

also have to pay song-writing royalties to the MCPS.

As an extra precaution against losing money, a number of artists also send their

labels to overseas distributors, effectively licensing the record to them. The

beneﬁ t of this approach is twofold: it provides a larger potential audience and

they’ll press any additional recordings themselves. On some occasions they

may also be willing to pay you a licence fee as an advance for the records, but if

the record doesn’t sell many may well expect this back.

In an ideal world the record would ﬂ y out of the shops and the money you

make can go towards releasing the next single until ultimately you have a num-

ber one hit. You start your own record company and start signing other art-

ists or another label offers you a sub-licensing label deal. This has happened

with many small independent labels, where a larger record company such as

Sony or Virgin help to not only ﬁ nance your work but also use their marketing

inﬂ uence to reach a much wider audience, in return for a slice of your prof-

its, of course. This kind of afﬁ liation is more common that many realize and a

proportionate amount of ‘independent’ labels depend heavily on the backing

from large companies. So, if the premise that the end of large labels is on the

horizon from the evolution of self-promotion on the internet and illegal MP3

downloads holds true, the smaller labels will fold ﬁ rst !