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@Gary
Yes I do pay for “sidemen” (both out of pocket and with budget dollars) and I do perform as much “live” instrumentation as I can handle.
Regarding budget, it is always nice to have a budget to pay live performers, but even if there is no budget, and I believe in the piece enough and know that a live “human feel” will take the piece to a higher place, I simply will invest my own money to get the track to sound the way I envision and intended for it to sound.
If she is simply delighted to just be a part of the contract, why did you bring up the issue of compensation?
Because Happy Ears is trying to be fair or he wouldn’t have brought it up here!
In the record industry it pretty common to give an artist some writer’s share if they include it on their album. (started long ago with Madonna and continues today with people like Beyonce) The artists who is interested in our song was recently in a major singing contest on national television and have some major stuff going on.
I agree that practice has been going on for decades and if Madonna or Beyonce me that deal I would take it in a heartbeat! I wouldn’t take it for an artist who doesn’t have that kind of stature.
As for a “fair” split of the other income? You will probably get any number of opinions but only you will know what feels right to you.
She wrote the lyrics in 2-3 days and and showed up for one of the vocal sessions, and that pretty much her time investment in this
That makes her a co-writer on the song and should be split 50/50 (including the publishing). Check those old Beatles tunes. They always split 50/50 even when it was obvious who actually wrote the song. I seem to remember an interview where John and Paul said just having some one in the room added to the energy.
Replacing the vocal should not change the writers split. Why would it? The song wouldn’t exist without her lyrics.
As for any sync or master fees. You probably should have worked that out in front but you could probably make a case for taking a bigger percentage of those fees.
Just my 2 cents worth and I am not a lawyer.
Good Production + good writing + catchy sound + live, really good players performing on the tracks (especially for pop and rock stuff) = lots of placements. It’s that simple.
I know we can place synth/ midi based tracks, and I have, but more often than not the formula above pays the most dividends!
Jazz? Classical? Hip Hop? Dance? Epic Adventure Orchestral (Trailer style)? Blues? Solo Piano? Solo Guitar? and let’s add Latin? Funk?
I’ve mentioned this before but one of my best selling cues is called “Happy Hip Hop”. A darker sounding cue but very bouncy old style hip hop. Sold that thing over 80 times in the last couple of years on RF sites and it has made it into a number of TV shows. Also a number of funk, Latin, ragtime, Italian, Children, Bollywood, Rock and the ubiquitous Coldplay/U2. Write it and they will (most likely) come.
Though I have sold just about ever length on RF sites I do think longer pieces may be better. Just my two cents and it’s only a gut feel but I seem to do way better with broadcast placements and I seldom go over 2 minutes.
And MichaelL has a point. My music is usually pretty dense so that may be a factor, for me, on why I don’t sell better on RF sites.
but why pay for online backup rather then do this?
I do both online and 3 hard drives. Redundancy and paranoia!
BTW one of those hard drives is in a safety deposit box.
I might add that I have more faith that Amazon will be around a lot longer than some of the other solutions.
I’ve been using Amazon S3 for backup and hosting all my music files. Also use SOS but there is probably something better than SOS.
Disingenuous means not being straightforward
The point I was trying to make (however badly) was that you are asking us to question AJ’s figures but not question yours.
And… how do we know that these numbers are not exaggerated to serve the interests of AJ?
@More Advice. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to imply someone else might be exaggerating and then take umbrage when someone suggests you might do the same. If you are going to open up that can of worms then you have to expect blowback.
@More Advice, the airline industry analogy doesn’t work, because it has no competition. You can’t take a train from New York to London, and most people don’t have the time to take a train or bus from NY to LA. So people have no choice, but to pay the price if they want to fly.
A point I tried to make to “More Advice” before but it keeps getting ignored.
BUT….more tracks have not resulted in more sales. Anyone have a theory as to why that is the case? I know Art you mentioned that your were experiencing the same scenario.
Yep same here and frustrating. I think the libraries may skew search results depending on newest music, newest composers or some other algorithm. It always seems that the first uploads, to a new site, return the most income per track and stagnates from there.
BTW P5 is currently the best earning site for me but that could change at anytime! 🙂