I stumbled across this article at Music Think Tank that gave advice on how to make instant money by playing music. Most of their advice consisted of playing, playing, and more playing. They advised to take on as many gigs as possible, not just live shows with your band (although they recommended plenty of that, too). But the biggest point that stuck out to me was the advice to play covers.
In the article, they say it’s a good way to practice and play different styles of music as your band is starting out. Once your band gets more experience and recognition, then you can start pushing your own original music.
I’d like to look at this from the reverse angle. If you are a band that has some solid playing experience and have written a solid catalog of original songs, try playing a cover and give it your own unique spin. I have a friend who plays in a screamo band (I really hate that term, but I can’t think of a better way to describe it). They’ve been playing and touring the country for about five years now. This summer, they were in a studio and recorded a cover of a hit pop song that was getting a lot of radio play at the time. They posted it on their MySpace page and it blew up. They had over 15,000 plays of this song after only three days! There were loads of new friend requests each day from people saying they loved the cover, and quite a few more who said how much they loved the band. That’s a whole new slew of fans just from playing a cover song.
Here is how I would do it:
Pick a song that’s compatible with your own fanbase, but crosses genres and potentially draws new fans.
Put in a solid effort when writing and recording this cover. Nobody will want to listen if it sounds terrible!
Acquire mechanical use licenses so you can legally distribute and sell this recording. Let’s say my friend from the example 10,000 downloads of this track over that weekend; if their cut after paying the publishers and distributors (iTunes, Amazon) is around $0.50, they would have made $5,000 that weekend! I realize that not every cover would generate that type of response, and a 2/3 conversion rate from plays to downloads is pretty generous (especially since the 15,000 plays probably were not all unique plays), but any additional income stream can help an independent musician, no matter how small.
Push your original music on website visitors who come to hear your cover. If you are using a MySpace page, set up one of your own tunes to auto-play when a visitor hits your site. This will increase the chances of new fans hearing, liking, and/or buying your other tracks or CDs.
Make sure you splash your tour schedule and other merchandise all over your site so new fans have more opportunities to support you.
So what’s you opinion? Does your band play cover songs? Or do you think it’s wrong to capitalize on the coattails of another song’s success?
For folks around the Twin Cities, here’s a quick rundown of some of the shows and events going on this weekend:
If you’re planning on going to the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes, I’d imagine you are already there and not sitting at a computer while reading this blog. There are plenty of COPYCATS Media customers and other local bands playing alongside some huge national acts. Among them are Atmosphere, Trampled By Turtles, Cloud Cult, Mason Jennings, The Honeydogs, and more. Of course, the three big headliners at this festival are Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic, and Wilco.
The New Standards, featuring former members of Semisonic and The Suburbs, are playing both Friday and Saturday night at the Dakota Jazz Club.
That’s just a small sampling of what’s going on this weekend in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Did we miss anything? Leave us a comment if there other cool events you’ll be attending these next few days.
We’ll be closed tomorrow, July 3rd, for the holiday weekend, but we’ll be back at it on Monday morning.
If you are forgoing the lake cabin getaway and staying in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for the weekend, here’s a sampling of good concerts around town:
There was an interesting little article over at Billboard today the problems of on-demand CD manufacturing. On-demand CD manufacturing is the process of duplicating, printing, and packaging a individual CDs as they are ordered. The article mentions that customers do not like the lower quality print and packaging that come with these duplicated CDRs. But there are ways that you could improve the product quality with this distribution method. Below is a real-life example:
At COPYCATS Media, we had a client who was in the business of recording live concerts and selling freshly recorded, mastered, and printed CDs within an hour or two after the show. They had some big name clients and were hired to record a summer tour for the Black Crowes. So how did we provide CDs, print, and packaging for a customer who needed a 2-hour turnaround time?
We printed up blank CDRs and empty packaging for each show. The client that recorded the shows would have a big truck with all their equipment outside the concert venue. Once the show was finished, they’d start mastering the recorded concert inside the truck. When the mastering was finished, they would start burning copies using the printed CDRs we made for them in advance. Then they’d take the duplicated copy of the CD and package it in the pre-printed digipaks we provided for each show. This was how they got their products to the fans almost immediately after the performance. They would then duplicate and package the rest of the CDRs and sell them through their online store.
The only downside to this method is the packaging did not contain the tracklisting because most touring artists don’t play the exact same setlist at every show. However, we did print seperate packaging for each date, so they would have a different color scheme along with the date, city, and venue printed on it.
In order to make this on-demand CD selling model work, this is what these companies would have to do to improve their product. But this would negate the reason retailers are interested in on-demand CDs in the first place (larger selection, less shelf space). The next best option is getting better printing technology to produce single high-quality prints at a reasonable price. This solution is also a dead-end, as a single high quality print might cost more than the CD, and reasonably priced print is going to be of lower quality.
Here’s an idea that might work for both brick-and-mortar retailers and online retailers: mail a commercial quality printed CD whenever a customer purchases a digital download of an album. If they purchase the downloads at a store kiosk, they can just dock their MP3 player or USB flash drive to the system and get their music on-demand. Then they can have the option to enter their address and have a physical copy of the CD mailed to them. The same would work if you buy from an online retailer like Amazon. You download the tracks on your home computer and receive the CD a few days later in the mail. Again, this satisfies the need for on-demand music as well as having a physical copy complete with the packaging and artwork. They would still need to store these CDs in a warehouse somewhere, but it will save valueable space inside stores.
Just my two cents. Has anybody ever purchased an on-demand CD from a kiosk? What did you think of the quality?
Hypebot is pushing a headline that reads “Pandora Forces $29.95 Payments From Indie Bands.” The title is somewhat misleading because the $29.95 does not go to Pandora; it goes to Amazon.com. Pandora now requires submitting artists to have a CD available for purchase on Amazon. Amazon charges the annual fee to make your titles available for distribution.
* a CD of your music
* a unique UPC code for that CD
* your CD to be available through Amazon (must be a physical CD, not just MP3s for download)
* the legal rights to your music
* MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD
* a free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, which can be associated with your music
While some artists are focusing on the digital realm for music distribution, this is an example of why you shouldn’t abandon physical formats just yet. The CD still has plenty of life left to it. If you only sell digital downloads, then you’ll miss out on lots of opportunities to sell your music. The same goes if you haven’t gotten on board with selling MP3’s yet and are only selling CDs. It’s best to have a mixed media distribution strategy.
If you get your CD duplication services provided by COPYCATS Media, you’ll be all set to submit your album to Amazon and Pandora. We provide a free bar code with our projects along with all the packaging and print.
Trocadero’s in the Warehouse District of Minneapolis has shut it doors and put up a “For Sale” sign. Our own Zac Boyd was disappointed at the sudden closing and feels this may be a reflection of the Twin Cities music scene itself. You can read his blog here for some more in-depth thoughts.
It was about a month ago that we were celebrating the arrival of a brand new music venue in Downtown Minneapolis. But with every new beginning, there comes another beginning’s end (or however that line from Semisonic’s “Closing Time” goes). Gained the 501 Club, but lost the Trocadero’s a few weeks later. As long as there are good bands out there and fans who want to listen to them, we’ll continue to have good music venues in the Twin Cities. Clubs will come and go, but the music will always be here.
I came across this post at USA Today by way of @artisthouse’s Twitter feed. It highlights an interesting idea dubbed as “The Music Tee.”
Front of music t-shirt, worn by skinny, pretty people
The concept is simple; purchase a band t-shirt that has a website URL and special code on the tag for you to download the album. The innovators who thought of this idea are going through a fancy-pants clothing company, so the shirt listed here costs $60. Zoiks! I understand paying a little bit more for the shirt and the downloads, but my Midwestern sensibilities tell me that is too much. I think $15-$20 would be a more favorable price, and I’m sure there will be some artists who will sell at that price.
This would be something any artist could do. COPYCATS Media offers download cards that work on the same principle (give a unique redemption code for consumers to enter online and receive downloads). An independent artist could print up T-shirts and tag download cards to them. The only downfall is production cost, since T-shirts cost a lot more to print than CDs. You could enhance your merch stand by still selling CDs along with the T-shirt/Downloads combo.
Back of the t-shirt with the track listing
There’s also a good opportunity to cross promote items. If you are an independent artist or label, try to partner up with a local clothing designer to package downloads with their clothing. The designs wouldn’t necessarily be promoting the band or label, but they could still include a sampling of tracks from them. This would help get your music into nontraditional retail outlets. Just an idea.
When shopping for the best price on a CD duplication project, customers often look for the lowest price they can find. It’s understandable. At this point in the production process, you’ve probably already spent a lot of money on recording, mastering, and graphic design. After paying for all that, you might be looking to pinch every penny you can. But when you are evaluating quotes from different companies, make sure you are comparing apples to apples.
When you see a quote that is drastically lower than the rest of the competition, there’s often a good reason why: it’s missing one or more important elements that the other quotes include. Companies will advertise that lowest price to get you in the door. When you request certain key features on your project, then your price gets jacked up.
Here are some common items that could be left off your low price quote:
Poly-wrap If you are going to be selling your CDs, you will most likely need poly-wrap to seal the package. Some CD duplication companies will advertise a really low price, but they won’t include this necessary element. When you add the price for the poly-wrap, it ends up being the same or more than the competition’s advertised price.
2-Sided Printing Most of our lower priced packages at COPYCATS Media include 4/1 printing. This means that your printed inserts are full color on one side and black & white on the other side. For a small increase in the unit price, you can get it printed 4/4 (full color on both sides). But some places will offer low prices that have less desirable print options, like 4/0 (full color print on one side, no print on the other side). They offer this low advertised price to draw in customers, knowing that most customers will want print on both sides of their inserts. That’s when they raise the price.
Standard Production Times Standard production time for a CD-DVD duplication project shouldn’t take more than two weeks (10 business days). Some places that offer the lowest prices will also have slower than usual production times, like 15-20 business days. Again, the tactic is to rope you in with the low advertised price, then raise it when you want a faster production time.
By now, you’ve probably recognized the pattern: 1) advertise prices lower prices than the competition to lure customers, 2) exclude key features that most customers will need, 3) raise the price when they request these features.
Every CD-DVD duplication company will aggressively advertise their lowest prices (including us), but make sure those low-priced packages include everything you need.
Preparing art files can be a difficult step in completing your CD replication project. If you choose to do it on your own without any significant graphic design experience, you may run into problems during the prepress stage of the project. Here are the most common mistakes made when submitting art files to COPYCATS Media:
Not in Templates Most problems arise from art files not being set up in our templates. We have templates of our most common packaging options at our website. You can download them for free. If you need a template for something that is not our website, please contact us and we’ll e-mail it to you.
No Bleeds
Your art files need to be set up with bleeds to allow for slight shifting when the print materials are cut. If you don’t have bleeds, then your printed inserts could have thin, unprinted white strips around the edges. Bleeding the image at least 1/8 of an inch over the cut line will prevent this from happening.
Wrong Color Mode
Print files need to be set up in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) mode, but often are submitted in RGB (red, green, and blue). RGB is the color mode used for television screens and computer monitors. Because they generate colors from light, they can make much brighter colors than CMYK inks. If you print RGB colors on paper, they will appear much more dull.
Low Resolution
Resolution needs to be at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) for print. If it’s lower, the images will appear pixelated when they are printed. Often, our customers will use an image file they pull off a website, but most web images are at 72 dpi. Make sure you always use high resolution images for print.
Missing Fonts It’s best to include the font files you use in your design, or just outline the fonts. There are many different types of fonts for Windows and MAC OS, and there could be slight variations from one system to another, even if they have the same name.
Follow these five pieces of advice, and your art files should be ready when you first submit them. Remember, you can always contact us if you have questions or would like to inquire about our affordable graphic design services.
Green Day is sticking to their ideals, however, and not releasing a censored version. They don’t believe they should have to censor their music, and that Wal-Mart should have an obligation to sell their customers the correct art.
Wal-Mart has the right to decide what products they want to carry, and I see nothing wrong with bleeping out a few F-bombs. It seems like a reasonable request, and most people hear those versions on the radio anyway. But what happens it goes beyond a simple f^*k or s%#t? Should artists have to edit out other lyrics that are considered objectionable? That takes away from the meaning of the song and the statement its trying to make.
I applaud Green Day for making a stand for their art and not being overly concerned with making a few more bucks. But then again, they didn’t seem to make a big deal a few years ago when radio stations gutted out a significant portion of the song, “Holiday.”
So what would you do in this situation? Would you censor your music for a retailer? What if your CD didn’t contain any blatant curse words, but, as mentioned in the article, lyrics that contained “some references considered adult?” Is Green Day being too sensitive, or does Wal-Mart have a faulty policy?
Comments (0) 
In the article, they say it’s a good way to practice and play different styles of music as your band is starting out. Once your band gets more experience and recognition, then you can start pushing your own original music.
Elvis Costello playing at the Taste of Minnesota festival on the 4th of July at Harriet Island in St. Paul
Haley Bonar is playing at the Walker Art Center’s Free First Saturday concert in the Sculpture Garden.
In order to make this on-demand CD selling model work, this is what these companies would have to do to improve their product. But this would negate the reason retailers are interested in on-demand CDs in the first place (larger selection, less shelf space). The next best option is getting better printing technology to produce single high-quality prints at a reasonable price. This solution is also a dead-end, as a single high quality print might cost more than the CD, and reasonably priced print is going to be of lower quality.
