Navigating the Industry - Keep Your Ears Open

Picking the right music for a bar or cafe is a surprisingly tough job. It would seem obvious that trendy cocktail bars deserve some chic electro or house, or that you can't really have Robert Hood in quiet little tea room. Then again, life can still surprise you from time to time, and our unofficial 'Death Metal Mondays' at work resulted in a number of sleepy old men sat at the bar, knodding along happily to Dimmu Borgir and Mayhem. Equally, pop that seems innocuous can do a surprisingly good job of alienating punters, particularly earworms that interrupt conversation. Several months ago, Scottish start-up Open Ear launched a program designed specifically to tackle the complex issue of what music should be played out in venues. Arguing that sound is an important factor in establishing an appropriate ambiance, Open Ear offer a "music design consultancy," which produces tailored soundtracks for venues with independent analysis and appropriate selections. This might simply seem like a way for bars to outsource their jukebox, but Open Ear have consistently produced campaigns which support low-level, local music and offer unique platforms for artists.

Open Ear's 'on demand' service has already been used in Glasgow's The Lighthouse's shop and café, with an option for punters to buy the music if they're taken with it. The Director of Open Ear, Brian Harvey observes that "the music that public spaces and businesses play says so much about what they represent and stand for – our use of a wide range of contemporary Scottish labels helps identify the Lighthouse as a promoter for new Scottish design talent, whilst at the same time giving something back to the artists and labels involved. It's also a great platform that unsigned acts can use to get their music heard by an international audience." This gets interesting when you consider that Open Ear are mostly using local artists and labels like Chemikal Underground, Hum + Haw, Mungo's Hi-fi and Benbecula, and pay royalties from every sale to local artists. In short, this offers struggling independents the opportunity to circulate their music and looks set to improve the quality of music in most bars.

Open Ear's new project changes the face of independent music production, and compares interestingly to another local story of local artists. Smear, Glaswegian and purveyor of some seriously bass-heavy minimal techno, has just released Transect. This work of bass-heavy nastiness has been picked up by the likes of Surgeon, and a good number of local DJs; Rub-a-Dub sold out their pre-release stock of the records straight away. What makes this so interesting is that Smear lacks any big label backing; he put together Forward Strategy Group records to release productions by himself and Edinburgh local, Patrick Walker. "We got the pressing process started before we started looking for distribution, we probably should have seen if there was any interest first! Basically we thought we'll get it made and distribute ourselves if we had to, but luckily we have a distro that's really positive about FSG, so it looks like we got away with it!" he tells me.

Despite the multiple layers involved in releasing music, Al claims that it really wasn't too difficult: "There was slightly more to it than I originally thought but it hasn't really felt like much work." Admittedly, when asked if he sees working on his own in this way as financially viable, he happily replies "Nope! [But] as long as we can scrape together enough to make the next record and the distro are happy with putting it out then we're happy." He's keen to stress the control that this gives him over the entire project however, pointing out that "if we'd gone through someone else, we'd probably still be waiting for the record."

For most artists, the releasing process involves a great deal more stages than this including tests, profile / promotion and of course winning a distribution deal for your physical product. These used to be fairly simple tasks, but the result of mass changes across the music industry has shifted the goal posts making it both more complex and expensive. In the early nineties, the task of getting a deal for the production and distribution of music was a relatively simple process. Producers were few in numbers, so if you had music with potential, it didn't take much to get a distributor to take you on. UK distributors like Prime, Southern, Silver Fish and Inter-Groove were always on the look out for new talent, and in many cases were willing to not just distribute your music, but also manufacture and promote it for you too. On top of this, music manufacturing was fairly cheap, with a stream of pressing plants happy to take your money like Independent (Holland), MPO (France), Palace (Germany) and JTS or Damont (UK). Mastering houses were also much more reasonable with charges, with places like Porkies Prime Cuts charging as little as £175 for a 12" cut, a great find if you were on a budget.

Over the last 10-15 years the rise of the internet and digital music has changed the face of the industry as we know it. There's been a surge of new producers, the product of a now 'open industry' fuelled by tools like MySpace, cheap music production software and the ability to release music on MP3, without having to pay for traditional vinyl or CD pressings.

There are now many people wanting distribution deals, with distributors only having the ability to handle a certain number of labels at any one time, so getting a deal can involve being known already, or producing something pretty special. In terms of actually producing vinyl, the prices of manufacturing have shot up. Digital music has taken away sales figures from labels pushing down the average number of units sold; small numbers of units are more expensive to produce, and labels tend to rely on economies of scale to make a profit. Equally, the number of pressing plants has been reduced, making it harder to find somewhere to press at a competitive price.

So is it impossible to get your music produced without paying top dollar or taking a massive risk? Not exactly: there are ways and means, but you've just got to be clever about it. This means things like doing a lot of pre-mastering yourself instead of paying others to do it, or by getting you're music to the right people in the industry who might be willing to give you a break in the form of a P&D (Production & Distribution deal).

On top of the financial issues, it’s important to understand certain legal aspects of the industry. Two organisations of interest are the MCPS (The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society), the main industry body that pays royalties on music to artists, sold in any shape or form, from records and CD’s through to film and computer game scores. The other is the PRS (The Performing Rights Society), an organisation that acts on the behalf of musicians, collecting monies that are due to them from having their music used by any third parties, such as radio, clubs or even retail stores.

To protect yourself and be sure that you are receiving what you are due for your works, it’s important to understand the basics of both organisations. You can check them both out at: www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk. We'll have more on this next month.

Take folktronica artist Capitol K - who we speak to elsewhere this month - he has independently released his past three albums, fronting the cash for the vinyl pressing, mailing out press releases and designing promo materials. He's downbeat about the amount of work involved in putting out records, however he points out that in terms of organisation, touring takes a far greater effort than merely mastering a recording and finding a distributor. "Once you get into touring, you're involving yourself with this whole mass of promoters, event managers, sound technicians and much more co-ordination."

Whilst the only way to get paid straight-away and with no taxation is busking, it often seems that there is far too much tainting the process of simply putting music out with cash in hand back. More independent, smaller labels means fewer people to deal with, and as the success of the labels that Open Ear are supporting demonstrates, they, and the option of going it alone, are viable alternatives to the monopoly of major labels.