Throughout the history of modern music, there hasnât been a musical artist/band who doesnât think that their songs are all #1 hits just waiting to be discovered. Many of these artists have been correct and have stood by grinning as their tunes screeched up the charts. This inspires a new crop of musicians every year to feverishly pen their potential hits in hopes of making it big.
Musicians write. They rehearse. They play clubs and hope that one day theyâll encounter that special A&R guy (or gal) that will, see them, dig them, sign them, and make them stars. But surprisingly enough, many of these bands never complete what is probably the most important tool for any musician signed or unsignedâ¦they never record a CD.
It cannot be stressed enough that the CD is at the heart of any musical project. It is the physical embodiment of the song, the combination of writing and performing. Itâs any musicianâs skeleton key for: club gigs, reviews, and radio play. CDs enable you to draw the attention of fans and industry at the same time. Whether containing one song or twenty, the possibilities of the unsigned artistâs CD are endless. Post them on the web. Get them to the press. Give them to your friends. Sell them at your shows. Send them to the record labels. Your CD lets the world know who you are and what you sound like and gives anyone who digs your music the opportunity to listen to it again and again.
So, how can you make sure that youâre CD does your music justice while appealing to fans and industry alike? While there is not one set way to record a CD, there are certain key elements that every professional CD should possess.
The following are a few tips that may help you to make sure that your CD will help your band instead of hindering it:
1.) Itâs Not The Size, Itâs What You Do With It—It doesnât matter how long your CD is, only that it accurately portrays your sound and vibe. If you donât have a lot of time or money to spend in the studio then record for quality instead of quantity. Itâs better to have one really kick ass tune recorded then a full length CD that sounds like it was recorded on a boom box in your basement. But that doesnât mean that your CD needs to be expensive or time consuming. The advanced technology of digital recordings has afforded musicians/bands the opportunity to record in smaller home studios and still come away with professional sounding recordings. Itâs now all about finding an engineer with a fantastic ear and the mastery of his/her own gear regardless of how inexpensive it may be.
2.) Record And Mix For The Song—Remember a song is a collaboration. Even if youâre the sole musician and engineer of your CD, recording a song is still an ensemble project. Instruments, voices and effects must all work together as a team to produce the best possible finished project. If a guitar line is too busy, a kick drive is too loud, or a voice is perpetually off key, the overall quality of the finished product is compromised. There is a delicate balance of creativity and technology, of art and electronics that comes together to produce the wonder that is your CD. Treat that balance with respect. Put your ego aside and record with the songs as your absolute priority.
3.) Less Talk And More Action—Certainly there is a great deal of preparation that is required before recording. Mapping out the arrangements of your tunes can be an arduous process usually much more complicated than the live performance of the song. One guitar part becomes three, or five or ten, a basic drum part now includes percussion and electronic beats, two backing tracks can become twenty. Sometimes you feel as if your brain will certainly explode from the mapping out of all of the musical and vocal parts required to give your song a professionally recorded sound. But donât get so lost in the charting and practicing of various parts and forget that time is of the essence here. Itâs all well and good to tell those who inquire that youâre âin the studioâ or âcurrently recordingâ but if a CD does not materialize in a reasonable amount of time both fans and industry will grow disinterested and move on to someone who has a finished product.
4.) If It Sounds Good, Make It Look Good—After the time and energy youâve spent to make your CD sound amazing, donât scribble on it with a blunt sharpie, throw it in a used envelope and expect a record label to be impressed with it. If your CD looks unprofessional, it will be dismissed as such and will probably spend its days unlistened to, lining the bottom of some A&R internâs birdcage. Simple packaging is certainly acceptable but make sure your CDâs first impression a good oneâ¦your graphics are high quality, your text is neat, your paper stock is professional and all materials are unused. Even the most poorly recorded CD will get a listen, if it comes in a pretty package.
Now that you have a professional CD recorded, your possibilities are endless. Send it to anyone and everyone! Get your name out there! Make new fans! Grab some press! Get a record deal! Stand back and grin as your single goes screaming up the charts. Anything is possible if you have a good CD and can share your music with the world.
My first injection of Extreme Metal Music was back in 1985, i was 13 and a Metallica – “Ride The Lighning” cassette crossed my paths (Yes back then that was considered Extreme). I remember being at home alone with my crappy old “Ghetto Blaster” (that ‘ate tapes’) and fascinated at the cool “Electric Chair” cover art, it was at that moment within the first 30 seconds of “Fight Fire with fire” that my life would no doubt be set down a new path and Extreme Death Metal Music would be my fate. I remember being blown-away and scared shitless at the same time. The shear aggression and speed of the music was unlike anything i had ever heard (remember this was 1984 and i was 13 and Def Leppard was about the heaviest i had ever heard) and it was that very song that forever changed my life (thanx James) and led me to investigate this style of music even more. Bands like Slayer, Venom, Possessed and Death became the metal music that “Got me thru the day”
Well, the year is now 2008 and even though Metallica’s “Ride The Lighning” is still one of my top 20 favorite albums of all time, Extreme Metal Music is like drugs, one is too many and a thousand is not enough.
The need for faster, heavier, more brutal and intense music dosages becomes the addiction. In today’s world of Extreme Metal Music – Metallica would probably be considered choir boys.
I guess it’s time to talk about what this article is actually about… running an underground Death Metal Record Label. First off, running an underground death metal label like this usually meansrunning it from your parents basement, or if your a grown man who just can’t seem to grow up, your running it from your own basement and are constantly having to remind your wife,”would you rather me be here at home with you wasting all our money, or at the strip clubs wasting all our money). Truth be told probably 90% of Death Metal Record Labels that exist do it for the pure love of the music and do it on top of working 40 – 50 hours a week doing something that actually makes money, and to those who continue to do it while investing their own money and risking their marriages and relationships i raise my Corona and “Cheers You!”… But that’s just what Extreme Metal does to people, there is a devotion to it, there is just this undeniable force that encapsulates you… it’s like being in a gang… a really large gang!
I work for a small record label CDN Records, a basement run 2 person operation managing over 2000 Extreme titles in the genres of Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Grindcore, Goregrind, Black Metal, Thrash Metal and more. The other person involved again and actually the one who started the label, a grown man like myself in his late 30’s obsessed with metal music in it’s most extreme form and probably the biggest “Death” (the band) fan you will ever meet. He started the label over 15 years ago, originally called “Civilian Death Network”, but after 9-11 it was apparent that we needed to change the name, hence (CDN Records). The label started out mostly as a “Tape Trading” network trading various Death metal bands demos with other Death Metal music fans around the world, and back then without the internet and low-cost’s of producing cd’s the cost involved could bankrupt most people. Most of us doing this tape trading stuff usually spent every last extra penny we had, we begged borrowed and stole just so we could pay for postage.But with the advent of the internet and the ability to manufacture “CD’s” cheap the label was able to evolve into a full-blown record label, signing and releasing
bands.
Currently we have over 15 of our own titles, and what we do is trade our titles with other Extreme Labels around the world which increases our distro catalogue. It’s a great system, and its probably the only form a music in the world (that i know of) that operates like this… again reminding me of the bond and devotion to Extreme Music us “Metalheads” have. It’s like there is no competition between all Underground metal labels, we work together to create an even larger network. Its and even better deal for alot of the bands in the Death Metal, Extreme Music genre. We have taken bands who would never have been able to get their music on a cd let alone shipped out and into the hands of metalheads around the world… and that’s a great feeling and what fuels us to keep going.
Although, we first do this for the love of Death Metal music, we definitely work very hard at trying to get “Death Metal Music” to pay the bills. How much better could it get? promoting the music you love and making a living do it…
Tips for staring your own Death Metal Record label:
1. Find a band that you really like and has already recorded their own full-length cd (This saves you money)
2. Sign the band to a simple distribution deal, you press 1000 copies and give the band a few hundred copies (most death metal bands will jump at the chance for this)
3. Get yourself a simple web site and the ability to sell your product online.
4. Spend countless hours surfing the internet looking for other small Extreme Death Metal labels… create a long list
5. Contact all the labels you found online and ask if they do “Trades”, usually trades are based on a point system you’ll figure that out quick.
6. Most labels will trade 3-5 copies to start, trade with 100 labels you now have 300-500 titles to add to your web sites online catalogue
7. Don not take more than 10 copies of any one title… 3-5 at most
8. Promote online, Promote Online, Promote online… forums, blogs, myspace etc etc.
9. Repeat steps 1 thru 7 once you have no more of the original 1000 cd’s you pressed, of the cd traded well press the same release, if you struggled
to get other labels to take it on trade, search for a new band and try again.
10. You will be very lucky to sell more than a few thousand copies of any 1 Extreme Death metal cd, Grindcore cd or Black Metal CD (unless you happy to get lucky enough to sign the next Cannibal Corpse or Cradle of Filth) release so don’t get frustrated, the key is to
build your online catalogue with 1000’s of titles to chose from and enjoy the fact that you are now promoting and selling 100’s of Extreme Metal bands.
For all you Death Metal, Brutal Death metal, Melodic Death metal, Grindcore, Goregrind, Black Metal and Thrash Metal needs, stop on by www.cdnrecords.com