65emkay
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65emkay
ParticipantHonestly, my choice of words can indeed lead to confusion too and those free sessions are in fact a problem, ruining prices, implanting bad habits becoming a default procedure, remaining a sensitive point for many: my advice to those unsure of their art is to stay away from a market we are trying to keep at a certain level and a quality generating expenses to be absorbed partly through the adequate billing; jobs went sour because of certain “originals” and it’s not right to ignore driving distances, variable price calculations considering time factor, specific client preferences and so on; just because we love music and it’s fun we will be paid a misery?
ParticipantP.S.: it’s important to have a commercial status for V.A.T., I.G.V., Mw.St. bills, otherwise it becomes difficult to be taken seriously as a pro, and a self promo shouldn’t offer the features of a payed session, of course…Better stop, many things are to be considered, it’ll come with experience, Rob, just do your thing, choose wisely your steps, first impressions and stuff, Good Luck & inspiration!
ParticipantOk, let me put it this way: a pro DJ is basically a one man enterprise, and as such one has to invest sometime, somewhere, somehow into self promotion and given the fact I don’t dispose of a location equipped with light, sound, dance floor, personnel a.s.o.a.s.f. I swap my service for an existing structure and succeed in showing my abilities it’s a gathering of forces, a one time action; if such action raises interest, well I will get payed like before in Germany at an average of 1200 Euros weekly serving music for Toshiba, Robert Mondavi, Siemens or even during Jazz live concerts in Köln & Düsseldorf, from ’99 till late ’04. To get these bookings I had to prove the being somebody named nobody, it was the best strategy which occurred to me, and “for free” might not have been the most appropriate definition, mind me: sono un italiano vero, thanks for your attention stay happiest!!!
ParticipantI’m dropping these lines to share the strategy which brought me to events acting as principal DJ; just looked for events presenting a genre within my comfort zone, contacted the administrators, PRs or owners and offered them a pre event live show instead of some CDs played, often not bringing the hoped for warm up, with the bonus of being free and not affecting the tech set up for the main event, know what? They accepted, some colleagues had arguments with me, but if the owner of the place gave the ok and you prove to be a good opener, it can only get better, it got better for me! Even the closing of an event can expose you positively, I was booked from Monday till Thursday for five years in Germany ( not for free anymore…) being very niche with my ’70s fusion, funk and soul through this approach, which is now working again with my very niche nu jazz and own productions here in Lima Perú ( tough ground… ), hope this can open new perspectives Rob, in the meantime wish you Good Luck, ciao!
ParticipantHey LMP! Yes, I can confirm that I was in the very same situation, twice, have exact details of one : 2 of November 2014 “Soulful house straight 128 mix” was disabled and error 404 was the only thing one could get, no notification, explanation even worst I was completely ignored making me feel the perfect nobody I am in the circuit ( a decade of other activity…) and then they did it again with a backing track created with a Barry White sample, same arrogant sneaking behind with no comments; from these two events I started to back up all my stuff and the more I use those upload platforms, the more I assume that all this service is rather monitoring than promoting a DJ/producer, why do I get to this thought? Promo DJ, located somewhere in Russia lists the server addresses of visitors and people downloading my sets, and from USA there are only two towns from which I get visits, one is Ashburn, Virginia and its economy foots mostly on IT and security services such us companies’data back up, statistics, the chamber of commerce partly describes the companies as government services, Langley is not far, so what else could I gather from all this? Never thought I could become a near criminal through music, know what? So be it then LOVE MUSIC!!!
ParticipantHere a solution called Linux MultiMedia Studio; 12 years of improvements absolutely free with no limitations, apt for MIDI, projects, samples in .ogg, WAV mp3 can be imported etc. Clean powerful output of recorded items… Works nicely with Audacity on Linux, OS X and Windows, here a link to the site: https://lmms.io/ check it out, have to get used to their layout, once you are into it, it´s a pleasure and serious competitor, the extensive user’s guide could be better and some knowledge from audio processing combined with some music theory would help, it’s a tough road which will change your perception of music, once started there is no way back, very addictive, good luck!
ParticipantWell, I was offered a free package of two masters ideally from .WAV to mp3 192kb, in fact I have 4 tracks processed by LANDR for free, nr 5 got lost, every month I can send two takes; CDbaby was promoting this, believe it or not…
ParticipantHi Deathy!
Fortunately I’ve used the free service and the only viable solution for me is to learn and become more professional, no room for second chances wasting my time… Inspiration and success to you!ParticipantA friendly hello and thanks for your time and reply! I’ve obviously searched my mail accounts, not the LANDR one, shame on me :-)! Concerning the service offered and a “dunno” as a reply, while offering an online service available for thousands of users needing some mastering, meaning that: a) are not familiar with such complex process or b) don’t have the expensive devices in many cases, in a context of newcomers, hobbyists etc… those “unprofessional” programs should be well familiarized with, and if not, find out; how do we feel when on our inquiry as customers we get an “ehm, ehm, whoopss…”? The credibility is gone, my mixed set too, not to be found in mastering history at LANDR, not in wetransfer or cloud of sorts; finally I have a particular satisfaction in creating a credible track or mix with a silly cell or software ( not referring to MM, which led me to FL12, Acid, Audacity, Spreaker and LMMS ) reaching better results in listens than certain nu jazz producers, me as a perfect professional ( meaning I was and am paid for my sessions ) nobody. So if the approach to customers is not competent, welcoming, helpful, advising to load heavier WAV files and not considering the eventual intricacies related – BTW, the couple of mastered tracks they sent to me, vanished from my inbox as well – I have to call it curtains, since the time wasted won’t be paid which ain’t amusing at all, isn’t it? Best regards and success, Sir 😉
ParticipantLooking for new directions in music: this is the first thought I had while considering this subject; 1979 was the final year for disco THE business which saturated an audience longing for new emotions on the floor and there came acid jazz with recycled Deodato, Funk inc., Montana etc. and rare groove became a good excuse to play all sorts of crap, while BBC was cancelling one of the best shows filing under Something else… A lot of experiments, failures bands coming and going at a sad speed and finally a bunch of inspired DJs making the 1990s a legendary decade making us feel at home again, the house of music?
Bootlegs with old disco samples underlined with electronic beats became part of the scenario like Love is the message or Dancing in outer spaces at slower RPMs, The bottle n stuff, some say that’s where it all started and mixing it live was no easy task due to the exact electronic time combined with the unavoidable human imperfection. Others say that Chicago House has its roots in Detroit which became a no go area caused by that urban decay still unfolding and the arrival of DJs from motown, then again, considering the documentary Paris is burning the confusion increases and persists when reading the genre tags á la “soulfuldeepjazzyminimaldutchtriptekhouse” which won’t make any track better; so, instead of defining I’d rather go for a new direction in music, so let’s keep inspired. By the way: I was there in ’86 down Paddington, the east end in abandoned hospitals, police not daring to enter, club 100, upstairs on Oxford st or Pasha in Riccione, Villa delle rose, Cellophane in Rimini and it is still difficult to define the patchwork of styles, but it was boiling all right 😉ParticipantHello Kevin,
not sure if following is going to help, however I am “outfoxing” the rules successfully by – simple example – using a famous “I have a dream” sounding like Barry White, everybody will recognize that and industry won’t complain; uploaded lots of items like that and YT, Soundcloud & Co. gave green light.
Not ideal, surely the fastest, might be worth considering. Good Luck, Best RegardsAugust 24, 2015 at 3:23 am in reply to: https://soundcloud.com/trevisan-marco-anteo/nhb122mp3 #2244411Participantsorry, messed it all up, will delete immediately, thanks!
ParticipantThis is getting more and more confusing and arises a series of questions like: what about all that digitalized music which was converted before these new regulations? Are these having retroactive power? Is the use of a phone storing converted files becoming illegal? Playing a privately burned CD in my car turns me into an outlaw? Has anybody considered the creation of an international DJ union so to give a weight to our concerns, and take serious lobby actions ? Does such authority already exist? Time to “get up, stand up for our rights” I’m sick and tired of this stupid, hysterical decision making of short sighted “leaders”; finally I drop some food for thought: who needs music industry when we can make our own tunes? Some might object and wonder about all those musicians well, we didn’t start this game and have a right to success and peace of mind…
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