* Demo recordings & marketing yourself
A "demo" is a demonstration recording that is produced primarily for self-promotion or evaluation. Demos typically aren't sold. They are usually given away or provided along with other promotional materials in an effort to further an artist's musical endeavors.
Demos are produced for many different reasons. A cover band might be trying to get a gig at a local club. A band that writes and performs original tunes might be trying to get a record contract. An independent songwriter might be trying to sell songs to an established artist. A composer might be creating rough mixes for a film or TV director so they can determine how the music fits in certain scenes. Or maybe you have some song ideas floating around in your head that you'd like to submit to the band at the next rehearsal. Who knows. The point is, demos don't normally have the same level of sophistication that a highly polished commercial release would have. An artist usually doesn't spend as much time on a demo recording because it's not meant to be commercially released in stores or sold at shows. Of course that doesn't mean that a demo has to sound like shit. There can be a fine line between demo quality and pro-commercial quality sometimes. I guess a lot depends on how much time and effort you put into it or how well you performed the parts. I mean, we've all heard commercial recordings that sounded like crap, right?. So maybe there is no difference. Perfection is in the ear of the beholder.
Here are a few of my own personal opinions and observations about demo recordings. I've worked both sides of the fence when it comes to demo recordings. I've produced demos for many of my clients and I've also received demos from other artists in regards to various projects I've worked on in the past. I might not be an expert but I play one on TV. Remember though - these are nothing more than personal opinions. Ultimately, you should do whatever your heart tells you is the right thing to do.
1) Don't sweat the small shit. I know, I know, you're an artist and it's your nature to agonize over everything. All I'm saying is try to keep things in perspective. Most demo recipients aren't really paying attention anyway and you're just wasting time and money trying to spit-shine the demo into perfection. I read an interview once with Bonnie Raitt and she mentioned that she listened to demos in her car and if she didn't like the first few seconds of the song, the cassette or CD was tossed into the rear car seat along with the other castaways. It wasn't the sound quality she was interested in. It was the song itself. An established artist who is shopping for material is usually looking for songs that can be personalized or interpreted in some way. The same thing goes for A&R types at record companies. They'll usually listen to the first few seconds of a song (if they listen to it at all). If the first few seconds don't pique their interest, they'll jump to the next song (or the next CD). The point I'm trying to make here is that a highly polished demo, overdubbed and scrubbed to the point of commercial quality, may have the opposite effect you were hoping for. Let the material speak for itself and you'll probably have better luck with it. A great song usually transcends the recording process.
2) If I might expand a bit on point #1, some of the best songwriters I've worked with seem to inherently understand that if you keep the demo simple, you're much more likely to catch a few fish with it. For example, you might have written a song that works equally well in pop and country. But if you start adding pedal steel, fiddle and all kinds of other stuff to the arrangement, you run the risk that you will alienate anyone looking for a pop song. If you add screaming guitar solos or whacky synth parts you might scare off someone who wants something mellower. Get my drift? The idea is to cast as wide a net as possible. A simple recording arrangement with minimal overdubbing and scrubbing allows the listener to fill in the blanks.
3) A demo recording should probably be labeled as such. Just in case. You want the recipient to know that this doesn't necessarily represent your best quality of work or the best sound quality. Be careful who you hand these things out to and make sure they understand what they are getting.
4) DON'T FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR DEMO! A wise man in Tibet once told me that. Your demo is really nothing more than a calling card. You should be using it to go out and get a record contract or gig at the local saloon.
5) You probably shouldn't waste time and money having your demo professionally mastered. A little polish is ok. I usually run my mixes through a mastering plug-in just to give the music a bit of muscle and shine. But there's absolutely no point in going overboard. As I mentioned before, most demo recipients could care less and many probably won't even listen to the thing in the first place. One of the sad realities of this business.
6) Make sure you put your contact information on the CD itself. CD's have a bad habit of becoming separated from the case and booklet.
7) Hand-scribbling important information on a demo disc with a Sharpie is a really bad idea. Label the darn things. Make it look like you actually give a shit. And put a CD Audio or DVD logo on the disc label somewhere so people know what it is (logos can be found here). Someone once sent me an unlabeled DVD demo and I thought it was an audio CD and tried to play it in my car CD player. I got annoyed when it didn't work and almost threw the thing away. In regards to all this, let me say something about paper CD-R labels. Paper labels are generally a bad idea. Labeled CD's or DVD's sometimes don't play well in certain players (front-loading car decks seem to be the worst). Use paper labels as an absolute last resort. A better idea is to have a local short-run duplication company replicate your discs for you. They can imprint directly on the top of the disc using inkjet or Lightscribe technologies. If you're gonna roll your own, look at the ink jet imprintable discs (requires a special ink jet printer like the Epson R220 or similar) or the latest generation of LightScribe drives.
8) Do not put a lot of useless nonsense in your liner notes. Use the space to promote yourself properly. Put your email address, mailing address and phone numbers all over the damn thing.
9) I gotta tell you, if you don't have a web site these days, then you're missing the boat. There is absolutely no reason for a band or artist not to make that a high priority. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just something that goes into more detail about the artist. Your website should be a logical extension of your promotional package and demo recording. The web site should contain a few good photos of the artist. The CD should contain your website URL so the recipient can go there and learn a little more about the band. Don't slack off on this. Do it now! If nothing else, go to MySpace and set yourself up with a freebee page. MySpace seems to be the place to be these days.
10) Check your CD's or DVD's in a normal player before you send them out. Make sure they actually work. You may not get a second chance. If you're sending an audio CD make sure it's CD audio and not WAV or MP3 files. Not all players support WAV/MP3.
11) I don't know about jewel cases. I have mixed feelings about them. I've gotten too many that were broken or cracked due to shipping. It's probably not your fault but it looks bad right out of the box. Check out an alternate packaging solution if you're gonna mail CD's. A normal DVD case gives you more protection and a bigger area to include documentation (hint hint). Plus it doesn't disappear on the desk as easily (hint hint). I buy a lot of supplies from ULine. They have a great assortment of really nice packaging solutions for CD and DVD that don't cost much and look really professional. Generally, I would avoid sending CD submissions to industry people that are shrink wrapped or have the anti-theft tape attached. That shit is a pain in the ass to remove.
12) A few years ago, I got involved in a TV show deal. I was hired to be the music producer for this show. The producer stopped by one day with two big boxes of CD submissions. There were over a hundred CD's that I was supposed to sift through in order to pick music for the various episodes (including a theme song). It seemed like an overwhelming task. And more submissions were coming in almost daily. And I was supposed to run my normal business on top of this. After a few days of pondering how I was going to deal with the workload, I decided to roll up my sleeves and start doing something. I decided to start organizing the submissions into categories (or piles) depending on nothing more than outward appearance. Some of the CD's came bundled with a well-written cover letter and they looked like they had been professionally duplicated. Those went into the first pile and I decided those would be the first submissions I would listen to. Anything without a cover letter or labeled with a Sharpie went into the second pile which meant I would get to them later or not at all. Get my point?
13) Should you record the entire song or just a few seconds of each song? In some cases it makes sense to send out demos with clips that are maybe a minute long and organized in a way that piques the listener's interest and makes them want to hear more. But I would think about this carefully. Usually when asked for my opinion on this, I tell the client to record the entire song and then select the best part from the song. If the song has a 60 second intro with no vocals then you probably don't want to send someone the first 60 seconds of that song. The other thing is, in the scheme of things, I don't know how much money you're really saving by only recording segments of songs. In my mind, I'd rather have the whole song for no other reason than posterity so I can go back years later and hear what I had done with that band. But that's just me :-)
14) This is a personal pet peeve: PHONE SKILLS! Make sure your answering machine works! Make sure it's turned on if you leave the house. If you're one of those people who think it's cute or funny to have a 2 minute incoming greeting, be warned! You will get no call-back messages from me or anyone else important. Another helpful tip is to configure your answering machine so it picks up on either the first or third ring. I've seen some machines that don't pick up until after 7 or 8 rings (annoying). And I kinda hate those machines that only give you a few seconds to leave a message. It's up to you, but try to give people more than 30 seconds of message time if at all possible. Make sure your cell phone number is included in the promo somewhere. Make sure the answering machine greeting for your cell phone says something meaningful. I hate it when I get a cell phone greeting that contains no information. I'm not sure if I've reached the right person or not. And one last thing while I'm on a roll, if you're going to call someone important to discuss bookings, schedules, record contracts, etc. - avoid doing it from a cell phone. Call from your house or wherever but avoid using the cell phone. I can't tell you how many calls I get on a weekly basis from people calling from cell phones and the signal drops or the audio quality is shitty and I can't hear what they are saying.
And finally... this:
I read something on an internet forum a while back and they were talking about demo recordings and what that all means. The forum is gone now. But here's an excerpt::
I have to say there's an element of truth to that statement. Handing out half-baked cassette tapes or CD's used to be the norm - not so much any more. A&R reps want radio quality mixes these days so they can hit the ground running - especially true with rap and hip hop artists. Just something to consider when planning your next studio session or marketing campaign. The point is - consider both your short and long-term goals carefully. As mentioned in item #3 above, if you're gonna record a quick-and-dirty demo with minimal polish, be careful who you hand it to - you never know where these things end up. If your intention is to hand these things out at shows or post them up on MySpace, you will probably want it to sound as good as it can be.
Also suggest reading this.