[pp.int.general] Protest certain musicians?

[Brian McNeil]

On Sun, 2009-11-01 at 00:36 +0100, np wrote:

<snip>

> 15k is plenty of money for production of an ordinary indy act..

I would wholeheartedly agree with that. In my early twenties I became
quite involved with a friend's band; effectively serving as the sound
engineer. I did the best I could with the amplification and mixing kit
we had to get a good 'live' sound that improved their musicianship
(because they could hear themselves). Initially, I was in a position of
worrying about spending more than £50 on anything. Fortunately, life was
good to me later on and I could invest around £10,000 in PA equipment to
indulge 'my hobby'. I decided - this was around 15-20 years ago - that
we really needed time in the studio to put the band's original
compositions in a more professional form. That was another £3,000 on
top. I drafted a 'contract' with the band members which I thought was
ethical and fair. I paid for the studio, but could not force them to
release. If they wanted to release, I had to get first option. It fell
through as a 'lesson learned' when some of the band members wanted to be
"perfectionist" about the work. I'd funded one week in a studio, they'd
laid down about 12 wholly original tracks; we'd gone back in for another
week a couple of months later, reworked 3-4 tracks, and they still
weren't happy to live with the end result and put it on CD to sell. I
wasn't sinking any more money into it.

So, I have the experience that the music industry will trumpet, but I
have no regrets over what I did. I, and close friends who were in the
band, got a unique opportunity to work in a small-studio
semi-professional environment. The people who I had problems with are
still jobbing in the building trade and have abandoned creating music.
The close friends who share my views still create, and can do near the
same thing with what's left from the PA I bought 15-odd years ago and a
modern £1,000 PC. The 'profit' they came away from the studio experience
with is who they worked with, a pro- sound engineer who has worked on
commercially released stuff. That experience is still very, very
valuable to them.

If I worked for EMI or Sony, I'd be decrying my friends as leeching scum
who I should sue in a court of law.



-- 
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
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