As a songwriter I have to agree. I have enough songs to record an album but it's far smarter to focus on a single and follow it up with an EP. This will be my strategy moving forward.
My album that took 5 years to make came out through Cdbaby, and then Glenn published his previous video. And the worst thing is he is right. Heartbreaking.
Yep. As a fan, I will always buy physical media until the option no longer exists. But as a musician myself, all my bands are streaming. We use Distrokid. Can't fight city hall.
Cd Baby dropped my music because they where jut hurt about the way I talked to them after enduring their horrible service for a long time.Fvck cd Baby.
I was featured in this video. Just to clarify: I agree with what Glenn said. If you think an album is your path to rockstar success, you are greatly mistaken. Also, the money you'd spend on recording an album can be spent way more usefully, like buying a van for shows. I'm just saying - If you wanna make an album, because it makes you happy, a.k.a. "It's Mah art", absolutely, go for it.
Yeah, I don't think he was as clear as he thinks when he expressed that he was ok with people with no profit in mind. But it's alright. At least he said it a couple times in this video.
Even if you have no profit motive in mind though, if you don't have music written and recorded, how do you book gigs and shows? Serious question. I'm not a rock/metal guy so I really wanna understand the logic
What you mean? I think my $8500 out of pocket was totally worth the lack of recognition. I legit couldn’t think of anything better I could spend my near $10000 on, like a house, a new car, hell even 5 new guitars, maybe my own studio equipment which might possibly be an actual investment with legit return…
@@drakonyanazkar I totally got that from this video. He was clear to me. Ultimately his point is this: Just know that your money is more than likely just going into someone else’s pocket and you’ll never see any benefit in the slightest. Some of the biggest metal bands out these days got big by posting play through videos when they were nobodies.
@@Zeta9966 And Extreme Metal bands can't ever expect to make a profit, but some lucky few actually manage to tour around the world and fill venues with fans. Most of these had to start way back in the 90s (Amon Amarth), but some achieved a moderate amount of success in much less time (Carach Angren). And to your 10k going to an album instead of other stuff: if you have a car, you have a house, you have 5 guitars, you have 10k but you didn't record the album you envisioned, what's the point of buying another car, getting a downpayment in another house or buying 5 more guitars? Glenn's point wasn't that albums shouldn't be made, but that they are terrible starting points. If you already have an album, just do another. But if you didn't debut yet, you might prefer to do a single/EP/demo to see if your material is actually worth anything. And who knows, maybe the single will help finance the album later if it brings any profit. Especially because whenever you record a single, you probably have at least 10 other original songs already; which just haven't been recorded yet.
Glenn: "It doesn't make financial sense to make albums anymore" Non-Musicians: "Yeah but I'll buy an album every once in a blue moon when the planets are aligned"
Then again, I think most people making albums are not making it to make a commercially successful product. I spend countless hours over 2 years to make an album that made 57 quid in the first month. I got a label, will be getting a CD, but I just made it purely because that was the only form I could express what I needed to.
I don’t think albums are entirely dead. I use streaming services on the daily. But it’ll never compare to buying a fresh press, opening it up and putting it on a turntable.
Even though I primarily listen to music on Spotify these days, I still usually listen to albums front to back at work, and I'm not adverse to buying albums I've found on Spotify either. I'll probably always be one of the minority that prefers full albums as a consumer.
@@stevec6427 Yeah, I think they're best for discovering music, but I actually learned the hard way that Spotify only lets you download 10,000 songs per device. For most, that's probably fine, but I don't want to eat up all my data listening to music at work, and my library on the app is constantly growing, so at some point, I need to buy digital albums to have a much music on my phone locally as possible.
Yeah from a band you already know and are familiar with. If you’re dropping $28 bucks on a band you’ve never heard, I’ll be your friend for $100 a month.
From my observations, the most important thing about being an artist these days is shitloads of content for online consumption. Just keep making stuff and putting it out there as soon as it's ready. When you have enough material to compile an album, go for it if you want. Cater to whatever packaging your audience wants, if you can. Keep an open mind and keep creating and again: Content content content.
I posted this in another comment thread on here, but Periphery is a great example. That whole thing started with Misha writing and recording individual songs on his own in his bedroom and posting play through videos on forums like Meshforum and Seven-String forum. He was just a solo artist being digested track by track via MySpace. Once his stuff gained traction, he put together a band (which I was going to audition for until he sent me Buttersnips which made me almost quit playing guitar), they played shows, they got signed, compiled the tracks he had done, added a few more, got it professionally mastered, and the rest is history. TLDR: Misha made Periphery famous by playing guitar in his boxers.
Shit man I remember doing the same thing we were so excited lol despite the engineer being a dickhead lol album went nowhere obviously but I still have like 20 of the albums left lol we even made the cover art one by one and printed the disc labels as well one by one lol good times man
@@jklo4377 our engineer was cool AF we printed (school printer) the black and white artwork and individually colored (colored pencils pens crayons what ever we had) the cassette inserts and an ass ton of stickers, we sold or gave away all 200 copy’s unless one of the other guys has a box somewhere. Did we recoup our costs? No . Did we learn a fuck ton of useable real world knowledge about recording… oh hell yes!! Would I do it again? Only if someone else is paying!
You posted my comment on this video haha! That's awesome, love your show. I still stand behind what I wrote. Just prefer having a physical album (if possible) and I think a lot of people still do. I'm seeing young people buying and collecting vinyl now which is great and seeing kids trying to get more involved with music and not just streaming everything is also great. When you get whatever you want instantly you tend to take it for granted. I do download my music and add it to my phone after I buy an album so I don't totally hate technology and it's nice to not have giant books of CD's in my truck. You are right though, I think the way people listen to music with streaming services and such is the norm and if you don't get with the times you're gonna be left behind. It's still great when band make full albums and always look forward to buying them. Now get off my lawn!
Know what I love about this channel? Even though you focus mainly on metal, I don't even have to be fan of metal to learn so much about music production. Thank you, Glenn. Wish I discovered your channel sooner.
Quality is quality, that's it. The world of music is changing and the culture of album has been there for decades, so there are many more excellent albums than EPs. The EP format is a lot more coherent and relevant nowadays though.
Of course, sometimes EPs leave wanting more, but I wouldn't necessarily say Albums are better than EPs. I'd honestly say EPs (and singles for that matter) are a great introduction to a new band I haven't heard before.
Ok, I love Megadeth. I actually also like Dave's vocals as well. Is he a good, let alone, a great singer? Absolutely no way. Is his voice suited for Megadeth? Yes.
Hell, his voice is what makes Sweating Bullets such an entertaining song IMO. He's not good at singing but his voice MAKES that song. I'm only singling that one out because it was the one Glenn was quoting lol.
Yeah, Dave, Joe Elliott, Geddy Lee......their voices ain't technically great but they use them to their best effect and they've all been very successful. As has Rog Halford and David Coverdale to name but a few really technically brilliant singers. Enjoy 'em all just as much.
@@2112jonr Idk about Geddy Lee. He has a great sounding lower range IMO, and I don't really understand people's criticisms of his higher range either. Then again, I really like Dave Mustaine's vocals despite them not being THAT good from a technical standpoint, and my favourite vocalist of all time is James LaBrie, who gets a lot of shit online, so what do I know? Lol
Hey Glenn, long time subscriber and first time writing any comment. Having first discovered my love for music in the late nineties while growing up in The Bronx, NY to living and chasing my dream as a rock artist and recording engineer in Southern California, I can attest to everything you have stated in relation to treating music as a fun, but serious business! All of the ideas and themes you discuss are staples for continued music industry success, furthermore these principles apply to continued success in MOST business settings. Whether the "Diehard Preservationist" wants to acknowledge it or not, our behaviors in how we consume music and media are constantly changing form. Generally speaking, one who fails to adapt to current times will often grow reclusive and incessantly bitter at the society around oneself, failing to realize society has long moved on and simply put will NOT stop to acknowledge one's point of view any more than one does for oneself. Look, we get it! If you don't want to make money playing music, knock yourself the fuck out! But from those of us who are playing and singing/screaming into a mic with a chip on shoulder looking to leave some sort of great impression on WHOEVER and HOWEVER LARGE our audience may be, Glenn I sincerely thank you for speaking facts! Kind Regards To All, "Jhoni" (pronounced like regular ol' "Jhonny")
I wish I had commented on the original video. My band recorded a 15 song album back in 2003-2004. We were prolific writers, and wanted to get everything recorded. Our attitude was definitely that every song we wrote was the best thing anyone would ever listen to. The band lasted about another 2 years after that. Anyway, years later, after getting smarter about things, I thought, “it would have been much better to concentrate on 1-3 songs, instead of letting our hubris think people wanted to hear 15 songs from a band no one heard of.” Good to see you putting out that exact advice. I’m definitely under the impression good advice to musicians could hurt your bottom line in some ways. Kudos to you!
Can't wait next episodes coming up! When we will get videos about Amp elitists or outboard gear elitists? I'm really excited for the "Producers who haven't actually sold any significant ammount of records telling people how they should treat their product", that is going to be a banger!
@@elroxmusic Not really. I just find it interesting, that Glenn keeps complaining about everything sounding the same when his baseline is that all the musicians sound like shit and everyone that has their "own sound" still should record through his amps when coming to his studio. I've been watching him for a long time now, and what he keeps asking? Integrity, that a band should do their own thing and not follow trends and what's hot at the moment - this is metal after all. And next you know, he's telling reasons why bands shouldn't record full albums anymore and focus on recording singles - like every other band in every genre seems to be doing.
@@KeepTheGates Most likely not. I'm just saying that if we're supposed to get on with the times within the music industry, we shouldn't actually make complete works of music at all. 30 seconds in Instagram or TikTok or TH-cam is the way to go today, so why bother even with the single or EP releases? Meanwhile all the TH-camrs are telling us how Glenn is right, while not actually releasing songs that much - they're making videos about releasing songs. They're making content for social media. While they have their points that I can agree with, in my opinion there is a difference between making music, and making endless videos about "10 cliches in metal guitar", which generate clicks and views, which generates the income of a TH-camr and social media influencer. But is it the same thing as making and releasing music? In my opinion, no.
@@selenemoon2249 I agree 100%. If you want to make music for the large chunk of society that had an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish with down syndrome then yes, it's probably a bad idea to record and release an album. Most of the producers and engineers I respect and look up to are making a living producing albums and usually don't make videos for social media or really give a fuck about view count on any posts they do make. They're all passionate about making records, as are basically all of the bands that put out music that moves me personally. Most of them haven't achieved commercial success outside of an underground following and that's perfectly fine. I honestly haven't seen any youtubers or "iNfLuEnCeRs" put out any music that compares to what actual bands put out, yet they have plenty of videos about making music. At the end of the day, people can do what the fuck they want to. For me personally, I think albums are the way to go and I really hate how the majority of people have moved towards wanting a "bAnGeR" of a song that's no more than 3 minutes, then they want to move on to the next bAnGeR from the next band. Not my style and I don't really care if it's popular or not. All of this probably contributes to why metal has gone stale.
@@KeepTheGates I can agree with you. To get back to the point of the video, I can agree with Glenn that yeah, making an album is probably going to be a financial disaster. But atleast you got albums worth of music to play live, and maybe one of the songs starts to catch up with the audience - if the single fails, the whole produced package is done, and you betting all your effort on that one song didn't lead you anywhere. What I would like to know, is how other producers and studio owners feel about this? How they feel about someone on their field of work basically telling audiences "you shouldn't spend your money on the studio that makes our living"? To me it feels really weird, and I find it hard to believe that a studio owner and a record producer would really shoot themself in the leg (or what the saying is in English, anyway) out of the goodness of their heart. Totally different thing if you consider yourself a TH-camr more than a producer or studio owner, then you're generating content while slandering the profession that didn't work out for you as well as you hoped - and you're not undermining your actual profession and work.
Your love of the Focusrite red is very well founded. That thing is amazing! Good bye to line noise, and hello to quality sound and routing! One thing about world heading to streaming, a wonderful and a terrible thing simultaneously! Its awesome that distribution, which used to be a major headache is solved! Its good for archiving, organization and integration. On the dark side, its a catastrophe for cash flow if you're not Katy Perry. If you are getting paid .001 for a song, the magnificent achievement of 10,000 streams won't make you Jack. Imagine the work or money it takes to get those streams and yet you get back nothing. This is a shit model when you figure in the extreme inflation which is constant because of rapacious governments & elites stealing through money printing. At some point one will need to stream 100 million to pay the electric bill. A terrible model for the illusion of making money with music.
hi glenn, im so glad you bring attention to both sides of the music industry and help musicians learn what to do/avoid. where i live there are still those few bands who just care about being the heaviest rather than being the best. For the most part bands in my neck of the woods do care about making music that they are proud of and is well constructed. i think a lot of the good bands around here watch your videos, keep up the good work glenn
Thanks for pointing out that most musicians are recording at home, myself included. I went out and took the dive into buying a Universal Audio Apollo Twin MKII. I’m looking to buy several Behringer audio interfaces and link them via optical cables, which is one of the reasons why I went with the Apollo. In doing so, I can record just about everything at once live, or record close mic’d drums and work from there. Having the mics is an issue right now, but there are some pretty good ones that I can use for the time being.
i prefer to put on albums front to back(on spotify) as opposed to listening to songs from a bunch of different bands thrown together, but i also have the self awerness to know i'm a rare breed; and catering your business model for folk like me isn't a good financial move
I never cared where the music business is headed or where it is. I do it because I like to play guitar. 🤷♂️ I would never make creative decisions based on “where we are at these days.” If you want to do an album, do it. If you want to do a single, do it.
i accepted that i wont make a dime in music. i pursue it only for my satisfaction. my first of 12 albums will drop next year, CD only. my goal is to die an unknown and be discovered 100 years after im gone. Mozart all the way baby.
I have put ten albums and like 16 EPs out since I started in 2015 and it's totally just for fun. A lot of them are concept albums so it had to be in album format. However, I have in fact made a singular dollar off of my music.
Dude!! Your last video I felt was very good advice and was also very inspiring! I’ve been sitting on a couple songs and waiting to get enough for an album or EP but I literally have no musical following so your single approach made it seem more accessible to me.
I totally understand where you're coming from, but I do have something I wanted to share related to this. I was in a band one time where I could tell we just weren't going to write any new songs until we got the current live-set recorded. I took it upon myself to do the work and that's when I really started learning how to record. Now, we did press too many (this was the early '00s so short-runs weren't really a thing yet), but it did exactly the thing I wanted it to do. We MOVED ON!! Musicians can get pretty precious with their songs (and they have limited memory) and an album can serve as a way to get together, back-up those songs, create some memories, and then wipe the slate clean and start workshopping new material. Yeah, you probably will lose some money, but if you're doing it yourselves and you don't print too many it can be pretty minimal. And, as a side-benefit everyone just got a little better at multi-tracking and layering/overdubbing.
I never comment but you said you read them. My wife and I make dark kinda alt/live instrument music. We love your channel. It's one of very few "rock" pages we watch together. Love the content. Preach the good word of musicians actually caring about the art and not the ego. Hope you know we love you man.
The bands I were in about 20 years ago, released albums that financially, went nowhere and not because they were bad- not at all! Competent musicians, good songs,crappy distribution,weak follow up with live shows and battle of egos were factors, but the truth is that even back then, when something was released, was automatically public domain through file distribution services like Napster. So, as Glenn says, if you just want something to show to your friends, it's okay to release an album- but don't expect to make money out of it, or even break even for that matter! We are recording our album wih my current band and although I shared my experiences and said it would be best to record a single, make a decent video, upload it and see how it goes ( before I watched Glenn's video), they were like " We get it, but we don't care about money. We stopped making music for 25 years to focus on career and family and now that we can afford it, we're doing it oldschool." So, vanity project.... as long as they don't press me financially, I'll try to make the best out of it.
Ok, he gave some advices for the artists who want to make music their career, but there is one thing that proves why albums are still worth making - conceptual album. I know that conceptual albums are very niche thing, but if you want to tell a huge story, for instance, a mere single won't be enough. Of course, you can make a coceptual EP but it doesn't provide a big room for a story with lots of events and details. Album is a vast field of experiments when it comes to the concept.
Hey Glenn, cheers from North Carolina. I've made albums for years in various and they really are a lot of time and effort for something with a small payoff. I've come to a lot of similar conclusions that you have listed of in these past 2 videos. So basically I have switched over to dropping singles, ep's & splits with other bands. Since switching to this 1 to 3 song at a time approach, writing and recording is way smoother. We have gained some traction online as well as started moving units of our old "Full-Length" that was collecting dust. We are still a metal band so that only equates to a few copies a month, we still work our day jobs lol. Now trends are cyclical and the market is currently like how it was in the 40s & 50s, running off of singles and ep's. The album might return in 40 years or something. It's not a bad thing. Also instead of just shoving all of your pre-recorded singles into a release, people can make it special, release re-recorded versions and drop it on an old analog format. Hell, mic up everything and have a rehearsal jam of the singles, then drop that on a tape or vinyl. In limited physical numbers, people eat that shit up. Basically using streaming to drop singles, keeps you in the algorithm and build an audience. Then you can afford to drop money on physical media you can accurately get to an audience you can measure. This is at least how I've come to terms with the modern industry. Anyway, Love the videos. Keep up the good work man.
I still value albums more than singles or EPs. I get that people have lower attention span these days, but honestly there are still albums out there which have basicly no filler songs. I grew up listening to albums. When I want to check out a band, I listen to their albums. One of the reasons that I couldn't get into electronic music much, because they don't produce albums. It sucks that album enjoyers are a minority these day. Chase the art, not the money.
People have to stop writing novels too. Consumers only have time for short stories in podcast form wrapped with commercials before hitting delete and moving forward. /Sarcasm
More than having low attention span, making an album is different than making singles. The advice is kinda good if you consider that most starting bands aren't full time musicians and trying to make +8 songs is really hard to make without some sounding pretty meh. Heck, even bands back in the day knew they had filler songs and "the good songs" were the ones that ended up on radio and tv. If is art quality is more preferable than quantity.
There are a lot of electronic artists that make albums. Especially when you go back to the golden era circa 90's - early 00's. To be honest there's also been a lot in the last 5 years or so on the underground level. Anyway, I agree 100%. There is nothing like a good album. They are the releases that tend to stand the test of time. For me as a producer/musicians?recording artist, it's all about creating and documenting the best piece of art possible. Being concerned about if it's trendy or not to release an album at a given moment in time is irrelevant to me. There have been a lot of albums that were not well recieved or did poorly in sales when they were released only to later become classics.
@@Abruzzo333 Any good examples for electronic artists that release full length albums? I know of The Prodigy, Boris Brejcha and Jean Micheal Jarre (the GOAT [and grandfather] of electronic music imo)
It's really funny how pretty much the most valuable thing of your point is that albums just take more money than they make these days, and yet people took that as if you were saying people shouldn't be allowed to buy and sell physical albums. Had to add: Also don't you know? Losing money is every musicians favorite thing! Ask the guitarists about that one! They sure know how to blow their entire bank and go in debt just to get a Gibson.
I released my first CD last year... it took me years to write/record/mix etc as it was all done in those rare moments I could snatch some spare time away from work/family etc etc... it was recorded so I could leave a reminder to my kids and family of who I am and what I do and love... I'm in my mid 50's and my dad died 13 years ago and I know very little about him so I didn't what that to be the case with me... it sounds a bit morbid but that was the main reason... The recording was intended to be a document and it was always intended to be a freebie and so far, I've given away about 20 to immediate family and a few friends (min order was 250 so a couple of full boxes left over!!) ... I just wanted to leave a physical item behind that one of my kids will look at and listen to one day and say "Yeah, my old man did that..."
I do ĺive sound, and when working with bands I always buy their album on hard copy, Its like trophies for me. And makes me feel proud to support the artists(live instrument full bands only)
Hey dude, thanks a heap for bring up the subject of how all-important the speakers are. The same is absolutely true for stereo systems, PAs, studio monitors, movie theaters, and even cars. Bless you Glenn.
Just the first point after the intro is basically what Humanity's Last Breath did with Valde. Four singles pre release i think and it just worked. Can't imagine a week of work (consultant/inspector for water pollutants and their vessels, four-five hours on the road in a day) without it hehe
I believe you're right that making an album is most likely a bad investment (from a business perspective). You can argue from a marketing perspective that it gives a band exposure, but unless that exposure results in making back your full monetary investment (or you have cash to burn), it's difficult to justify doing so. Tying into this (somewhat), I'm glad I have a day job to support my time and investment into making music that I enjoy making, but I'm still cheap and would prefer to record/edit everything at home 😆 It doesn't sounds great and there's most likely little to no chance of me being successful as a musician since I opt to "attempt" at writing music that is unconventional, if not off-putting, in terms of song structure, going off key and/or scale, blah, blah, blah 🤘 but it's fun to do it.
Loving the videos, Glenn! Stumbled across your channel a few days ago and catching up. Just recorded my first album. Bass player here footing the bill, just so you know we're not all stone-ass broke.
You're objectively correct on this point, but, well, I make music for my own internal compulsion to do so, and big concept albums are the music I most like making. I'm content to be equivalent to folks that race horses or shoot black powder flintlocks because they're fun, with no illusions that its practical. Anyone who wants to make a living on it though, yeah, singles are the move
My band made two full length "albums(CDs). We got real lucky, in that our guitar player knew someone who was building out his studio, helped him build it. We got free recording time on a 2" 24 track deck. We worked quickly, did all the songs on the floor, usually one take. We overdubbed solos and vocals. This happened while OJ was doing his low speed chase 'cause we watched it happen on the studio monitor. The second album we recorded in our rehearsal space on an 8 track ADAT(remember those?). Arty friends did both album covers. Except for the pressing, it was free. The pressing cost $1300 for 1000 copies. Same for the first album. There are ways to record an album on the cheap. The more people you know in your scene, the better. Also, if you are considering recording a physical CD or album, buy plain CD covers and cases, and have stickers made of your album art. Then all you have to do is have a sticker party and have all your friends over and sticker the album.
Just for some positive reinforcement on that last video... very hot take. But it was great! It honestly was what I needed to hear about the truth of the album. I've been thinking recently about the fact that nobody I know listens to vinyls or CD's anymore. Everything is instant! No one wants to pay for music and they shouldn't want to! Not only that, no one sits down and really deconstructs music anymore. No one listens to the drums and how they sound under the bass, no ones saying "oh I really like that guitar riff" no, they're listening to the mastered studio sounds and nothing else. No one plays albums front to back unless they're buying a physical copy. (Which again, is now nobody.) People barely EVER replay live concerts anymore either. Music is changing and if we want to make projects that reflect older music tastes (like in the punk scene where making your own record label was a huge thing) then we have to expect a smaller audience. Like you said in your video, the Amish are fucking dominating the horse and buggy market. And now for the artistically inclined musician, it's (just as it always has been) about finding a balance between working in the system, while working against the system. Anywho, Fuck you Glenn! Can't wait for the next video!
I like albums because I like CDs. And I like CDs because I like the object. I like the cover, the booklet, the design and the layout. And the sound of opening the jewelcase. Also that's my way of supporting the artists, since I do not have a lot of opportunities to see them live. But that's a personal (and maybe generational) choice. To each their own. And streaming or purely digital is for when I'm not at home or to discover new stuff.
I really like compilation albums, kinda like how legendary bands put out a "Greatest Hits" album which contain songs that were recorded over many years and of course sound different from each other.
What ever happened to the 3 - 4 song EP? Loved those from small local bands, I still remember getting a free one from a local band that played our high school one lunch time, still Remember the name of the band and wish I still had the CD. They ended up disappearing from the scene a few years later, and am sure they were glad they didn't drop a whole lot of money on a full length release.
if my music only gets one person's attention, that's still one person who felt something from my art. as far as my band, a crowd of 5 or 500, I play every shoe like it's my last(who knows what will happen tomorrow), and it pays off. Live shows and merch are the route to success, and if you don't over order or overpay to produce the album it falls under merch....but that's just my opinion.
I still buy albums, and keep them on playback. Pete Thorn, Ragdoll, Helium Road, Jay Parmar, Shawn Tubbs… Espen Kraft. Each of these is an extension of your recording channel, you can talk to each of them personally here on TH-cam. 😮 Rick Beato produced Chris Green, amazing album. And you can talk to Rick about it on his evening live streams, I have done it. I have tremendous respect for you Glenn, and there’s no one else who I’ve tried to glean advice from more than you. And I’ve been watching Warren for many years. I just like good rock music, and don’t really get into angry metal music, never have. I like good music! If you haven’t heard Ragdoll’s Back To Zero, you’re missing out. The whole album jams, I recommend the extended cut. Pete Thorn, exceptional.
Even during the decades when vinyl albums were the thing, it was very rare that entire albums were top notch songs. But don't let anything stop you from your art. Even the fact that virtually no one will care
Glenn I have a Heil 4-12 top box that I drive with a Fender Dual Showman. I have had this rig since the 80s and a while back I was trying to improve the sound quality of the setup. After reading a few articles on the internet and in a few mags I took the back of the cabinet off and put a mattress pad , foam rubber that resembled egg cartons, and lined the inside of cabinet, sides and back. It really tightened up the tone and the bass is much better . That being said, I can totally understand how speakers, the end of the signal chain can make such a great difference in the final tone of your system.
About releasing songs individually, my friends in Cane Hill have been releasing songs over the pandemic and have been getting huge numbers without even being signed to a label
I used to run a rehearsal studio that saw about 150 bands run through a week and EVERY single band thought they were the next Oasis, Metallica or Queen. I'd say about 4-5 bands actually sounded great, the rest were 100 percent delusional. It's crazy how many bands think they're going to hit the big time and sell millions of albums.
When you have a physical storage unit that fits a certain amount of product it makes sense to fill it somewhat, considering all the trouble of releasing it for sale. For music it used to be vinyls, cassettes, CD's. Then technology happened.
Releasing Singles actually work guys. This year we (Toxikull band) instead of releasing another album we decided to release "Warriors Collection", a collection of 6 singles promoted individually to be released through the year in our digital platforms. The collection is being released physically too in the format of a 6 Slot Box Set, where every collector can put all the cardboard sleeve singles inside. This way we can focus on the digital promotion, to reach new fans and give something physicall to our die hard fans. And guess what, it is actually working, because very single we release is an opportunity to promote as if you released an album, and currently we are selling not just the collection to our old fans, but our previous albuns and the collection to our new fans. On the other hand, if you're an band from the NWOTHM underground scene and if you have already some name on the scene, you still have to release something physical, there are good labels and distributors who can promote you in the real scene and there are a lot of people buying CD's. Conclusion: To release and album, you must have some fans, otherwise you should start by singles. (As Glenn said)
Side note: Back in 2000 my band paid my Canadian childhood friend to record our 17 song album. It only cost us $400 and he mixed if for us. We went to Guitar Center to convert the DAT tape to CD and ran it through one of their compressors. They let us sit there for over an hour and a half copying each song and they didn't take any money from us and we did offer to pay.
I like theme based albums so I'm going to do them, but I also release singles side by side, and the albums are shorter cus the narrative skits between every song (that can be omitted if you just want the songs). Ends up being about an album of content every 6 months to a year and the singles allow me to diverge from the thematic tones and style of the album. Use the singles reel in people to take the gamble on your more passionate project with the album. Guess I'll see if it works this winter.
Yo Glen, (forgive me, English is not my first language) you fucking rock! I dropped outta producing music in my late 20s thinking that I didn't have shit to offer. Lost what I thought was the Midas touch due to alcohol and heavy drug use. I said "fuck this shit!" and called it quits when I lost my older brother to cancer. My wife introduced me to your videos and I gotta thank her for that. Fucking inspiring shit! Struggled to stay clean in my 30s and just last year, I picked up where I left off and took the studio work seriously. Back then I used to think I was a big shot but there are were plenty of things you've pointed out that I never heard of. "That I am the best" mentality prevented me from actually exploring new gear, new techniques so on and so on. Began making sense of things that I wasnt capeable of understanding back I was a doped up 20 something year old. Turning 41 this month. Comepletely clean & Sober and business is fucking booming. A thousand+ thank yous and much appreciate your wisdom. Rock On Glen!
I can totally see the logic in your single approach. I personally like the EP approach. I've found that means you have to really look at your set and pick the best 3-4 tracks. Sometimes you find out you haven't got 3-4 good tracks, and that's an important lesson. Plus I've found it useful for promoters etc to get a bit more of a view of your stuff. We've often picked a title track and made a video for that. I once ran a small small label. I was going to put out an album by a debut artist. I got carried away. The promo company we used were great. They refused to take my money. They said they couldn't get it to anyone who would care, because creating the buzz around a debut artist on an unknown label (we were only 5 EP releases in) was near impossible. This was 12 years ago. Also, there are other ways to release singles. I odn't know if you've heard of The Wildhearts. The main songwriter/singer released a single, digitally, once a month for a year. it meant he could explore different styles, had time each month to build a bit of buzz and a year of attention from fans.
I'm one of those "artsy" guys and I can say that making an album is a terrible idea unless you're signed to a label and/or a fan base big enough to make money back on the record. Good art can still be sold, stop being a snob. Glenn is right
Thanks for the reality check Glenn. Ive been thinking about this exact thing for the past year or so. We still have the vocals to record which will get done after I go through Chris Liepes course because 'draft' vocals sounded like shit. Initally an 11 song album, but after your video, i grudgingly picked out the singles and the EPs. Ive invested way too much into this to have it all end with a small fizzle.
my reggae band im in has been taking the approach of "singles over albums/EPs" and it really does work. we have been doing this since the beginning of the pandemic and although, this might not work for everyone. this is the new way of music. the punk band i was in about 4-5 years ago recorded a full album and got absolutely nowhere. all we have is a box full of albums to show for it. dont be afraid of change. i love albums, but singles are the way to go. people have the attention span of a fly lol.
Love your stuff man, and a partially agree with what you said in the last video, but I don’t think it’s entirely true. If everyone jumped ship from things the masses don’t want, then we would all be image dragons.
As a studio owner and producer I would like to address the "how will studios survive" part of this video with what I tell my own clients: not much has to change in terms of how a band handles a recording schedule depending on their commitment and experience level, you're just not releasing them as a collection anymore. When you go into the studio and track 6 songs in that mindset you're simply batching content and depending on your deal with the studio engineer you can actually make this an economical process for at least the basics if you're tight enough and then it becomes more fiscally reasonable to do the rest of the production/mixing staggered with a proper release schedule. If a band or artist considers things in this fashion, laying the groundwork for 6 songs in one go and then staggering the rest, then you could essentially have an entire year of releases planned out if you're dropping a single every other month without nearly the stress mentally or financially that comes with gearing up for all of them at once.
Evening Glen. Have just watched both your album vids and feel the need to chip in. My band are currently writing our 4th studio album, and will be recording in over the winter ready for our 20th birthday celebration and tour in 2022. From my / our experience the album is far from dead, but having said that you are dead right about a lot of what you said regarding new bands. When we started out in the early 2000s we first did a two track single, followed by a three track ep, then a live mini album recorded at a local festival before starting on our first full length release. Since then our albums have all made a small profit. However there a few things that mark us out from small new bands (not for a minute claiming we are megastars or anything) 1) We are older guys aged between 45 and 60, all of us have been in other bands on our local scene, so even when the band was 'new' we weren't exactly unknowns. 2) Although our audience ranges from teenagers to aging bikers and dead head type hippies (we play heavy stoner type space rock - think Black Sabbath meets Pink Floyd and Hawkwind), a lot of our followers LIKE albums in physical formats. Last year we put out a digital four track ep, deciding not to do physical release, and we got a shed load of complaints because it WASN'T released on CD, and was ONLY four songs. Our physical sales at least match our download sales. 3) We keep our overheads low, We have our own rehearsal room that can be used for recording and two of us have pretty good home studios as well, We do use outside studios, but keep that time to a minimum, mainly we spend a couple of days in one doing live takes of the tunes to get that raw from the floor feel, then take it home for over dubs and tweeks before shipping out for mastering. All art work etc is also done in house.4)Finally we only produce limited runs of CDs, 100 or 200 at a time, and when stocks run low we do another press (our 2007 debut album is on its 6th run at the moment). So from my stand point the album is far from dead, and I for one would rather hear a well crafted 10 track album than a rushed throw away 3 song ep. BUT for the young and inexperienced outfit diving into an album is a hiding to nothing. As you said start small and work up to the big things, keep routed in reality and don't let the ego run away with you. Peace.
Check out Lordi's album Killection. It's a fictional compilation album with the idea of what the band could've sounded like had they been around for example in the 70's or the 80's. They used multiple studios, producers and recording engineers and didn't let them listen to what the others had done. They also used equipment from whatever era they were trying to emulate. This way every single song sounds completely different. It's a big fuck you to the music business telling that an album has to have one sound.
Amen to the single/compilation idea. I write, record and release a new track every month and then do an acoustic compilation of the last few releases. I just do this part time and started doing this to force myself how to get better at writing and recording. If your goal is getting your stuff noticed, pay to play is the only way. Manufacture some songs that will fit TV and movies and hit up music supervisors. Try Zire, paid reverb nation ads, collaborative playlists etc, but there’s sooooooo much music out there, it’s impossible to get noticed unless you have money, a PR person and know people.
Based on experience, for a no-name metal act, it's easier to get traction if you have an EP with at least 3-songs. Many underground music review sites are not interested in singles. Underground music folks are more conservative when it comes to music consumption. Many acts also release physical material exclusively and just put their stuff on the web after year or after their stocks run out. A lot of you would call that elitism but I think getting a hundred CDs sold is easier than having to wait a thousand streams on spotify.
I used to be more about albums, or in a sense, having entire discography’s of artists on my iPod or phone, whether I was a major fan of them or just giving them a chance. But then I kept skipping over songs that I never wanted to listen to, and they were taking up space. Now I only listen to entire albums for the bands I’m a big follower of, and for the artists I like but don’t follow regularly, I just keep the songs I like. I’d rather have a collection of killer, not filler.
Glenn, I'd love to see an in-depth video dedicated to EQ, covering your take on the more popular different methods and styles, and in context for each stage of production in the home studio. Also, perhaps, your preferred methods at each stage and why you prefer those methods could be helpful to us, as well. Anyway, thanks for all the great info...again!
Being the audio snob that I admittedly am, Spotify can blow me from a quality point of view but also for several other reasons too, including how much they rip off the artist. While I acknowledge that CDs have gone the same way as vinyl, in that it is for collectors of the whole package as both audible and visual art (Devin Townsend made that argument with his unboxing of "Empath"), I'm content with digital delivery if it permits offline copies of FLAC files. Therefore, I'm all for buying FLACs from whomever publishes in that format, such as Bandcamp, HDTracks, etc. Definitely nothing that's in MQA format, please! I want copies of the music to live on my storage for me to access whenever and however I choose. That includes the media player that I built and integrated into my car's infotainment system. If it's not available as a downloadable FLAC, then CD it is but in short, streaming services can gargle my balls.
Album releases done right can totally work. The funny thing is, CDs are mostly dead, but fans recently love vinyl. My band dropped an album this year, with a ton of promotional and adjacent content, promoted the heck out of it, and sold through our first pressing in just pre-sales. Before touring, it’s hard to get a fan base excited about a single, versus a new record. I do think singles/EP are the right choice for brand new artists.
I love the album format, the concept behind it, this is the way I relate to bands. That said, I agree with you 100%, specially as new bands are considered. Today, a very good video will do a band much better than a mediocre succession of derivative songs.
As a failed musician I can totally agree. Making an album is a very risky task if you don't have an audience at all and if you're not a musician full time and the reward is pretty mixed. You can say "yeah, I made an album", but at what cost? Making and album forces you to divide your attention to X amount of songs and as much as you try, some songs will have less attention than others. I tried to make an album but ended up scraping almost all of the material because it was trash, at the end of the day I ended up making "singles" to play along some covers in some garage concert. It made me happier.
Hey Glenn! Do you think you can start a story time series? I'm obsessed with your rants and I'd love to see you tell funny stories you have from the past. Even if they're not music related. Would sound really fun!
It makes a lot of sense to put out singles to test/validate how good your music is in a tighter release schedule compared to releasing an album. I can see that being much more efficient from a cost and time perspective. I felt like releasing albums were important because they represented a snapshot in time, but it's possible that singles do a better job of that. I still buy vinyl/CD's and it's kind of heartbreaking that these things may go away soon. At the same time, maybe it will free up musicians to take more creative risks? I guess only time will tell.
Victor Blakey is absolutely right! I read an interview with Steven Tyler when I was just starting out and he said "no one comes out to hear your songs, they come out to see a show". That stuck with me, especially when I see a band just staring down at their guitars the whole time.
I tend to do a series of singles, them i switch things up a little in terms of sonics and promotion. It's a good way to test the waters and find out what you are willing to do in order to get noticed.
Check out the Artist, Tom MacDonald. He's a Canadian Rapper, living in the states. Tom is Completely Independent....No label, no manager, no publicist, nothing. Just him (He writes all the songs, creates all the beats/music, records everything himself), Nova (his girl, she helps Tom with the hooks, tapes/directs all the videos, is a GREAT singer/rapper in her own right) and Evan (Mixes/Masters all of Tom's songs). That's it. Tom puts out singles/videos and then eventually packages everything; the singles plus songs that are "unreleased" (songs that Tom puts out in videos he will release to streaming services) as a CD. He is THE Poster Child for being an Independent artist that is slaying it. I'm an over 50 metal head, that grew up on Maiden, Metallica and Megadeth; but Tom is something completely different. I'm not asking you to review Tom, just look into him PERSONALLY and what he's doing.
In response to your point at 4:04, I do think it's worth noting that the small number of die hard individuals who want a physical CD are probably also the people who are going to be most willing to drop money on your band/project and continue to do so. I think that speaks to the whole idea of building a core audience of die hard fans. It may just be a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation because you need to throw those guys a bone where you can, but you also need to follow the way the industry is going to stay or become relevant.
Discouraging people from even trying? Bullshit. If anything, Glenn is trying to help detour people from disaster.
Hey....you got your comment pinned!!! Is Glen a good kisser?
@@sps3172 Absolutely incredible... 💋
As a songwriter I have to agree. I have enough songs to record an album but it's far smarter to focus on a single and follow it up with an EP. This will be my strategy moving forward.
Hit the nail on the head my good fellow
I think the whole point was dont waste your time on filler songs work on 3 or 4 really good tracks as opposed to 13 tracks of hot garbage
My album that took 5 years to make came out through Cdbaby, and then Glenn published his previous video. And the worst thing is he is right. Heartbreaking.
He is right and you are right. It is apples oranges argument if your goals were different.
What about the ones he posted a long time ago saying cdbaby is all bad?
Yep. As a fan, I will always buy physical media until the option no longer exists. But as a musician myself, all my bands are streaming. We use Distrokid. Can't fight city hall.
Cd Baby dropped my music because they where jut hurt about the way I talked to them after enduring their horrible service for a long time.Fvck cd Baby.
@@wubstepgrandma cdbaby IS terrible. Distrokid is the way to go.
Your Dave Mustaine impression was so spot-on that I started sweating bullets
This shit pun is gonna start some holy wars 🤦🏽♂️
Excelent!,in tune,time & style,Glenn could sing a band i reckon.
this comment is a hidden treasurei87o9i
I was featured in this video. Just to clarify: I agree with what Glenn said. If you think an album is your path to rockstar success, you are greatly mistaken. Also, the money you'd spend on recording an album can be spent way more usefully, like buying a van for shows.
I'm just saying - If you wanna make an album, because it makes you happy, a.k.a. "It's Mah art", absolutely, go for it.
Yeah, I don't think he was as clear as he thinks when he expressed that he was ok with people with no profit in mind. But it's alright. At least he said it a couple times in this video.
Even if you have no profit motive in mind though, if you don't have music written and recorded, how do you book gigs and shows? Serious question. I'm not a rock/metal guy so I really wanna understand the logic
What you mean? I think my $8500 out of pocket was totally worth the lack of recognition. I legit couldn’t think of anything better I could spend my near $10000 on, like a house, a new car, hell even 5 new guitars, maybe my own studio equipment which might possibly be an actual investment with legit return…
@@drakonyanazkar I totally got that from this video. He was clear to me. Ultimately his point is this: Just know that your money is more than likely just going into someone else’s pocket and you’ll never see any benefit in the slightest.
Some of the biggest metal bands out these days got big by posting play through videos when they were nobodies.
@@Zeta9966 And Extreme Metal bands can't ever expect to make a profit, but some lucky few actually manage to tour around the world and fill venues with fans. Most of these had to start way back in the 90s (Amon Amarth), but some achieved a moderate amount of success in much less time (Carach Angren).
And to your 10k going to an album instead of other stuff: if you have a car, you have a house, you have 5 guitars, you have 10k but you didn't record the album you envisioned, what's the point of buying another car, getting a downpayment in another house or buying 5 more guitars? Glenn's point wasn't that albums shouldn't be made, but that they are terrible starting points. If you already have an album, just do another. But if you didn't debut yet, you might prefer to do a single/EP/demo to see if your material is actually worth anything. And who knows, maybe the single will help finance the album later if it brings any profit. Especially because whenever you record a single, you probably have at least 10 other original songs already; which just haven't been recorded yet.
I'm one of those weirdos who buys albums, but listens to them digitally on streaming services, too. Glad to see I'm not alone!
Well think about it one day you might break or lose your phone and lose all your good music but you still have your cd or vinyl.
Glenn: "It doesn't make financial sense to make albums anymore"
Non-Musicians: "Yeah but I'll buy an album every once in a blue moon when the planets are aligned"
Then again, I think most people making albums are not making it to make a commercially successful product.
I spend countless hours over 2 years to make an album that made 57 quid in the first month. I got a label, will be getting a CD, but I just made it purely because that was the only form I could express what I needed to.
Congratulations mate! I would love to hear some of your stuff
@@galagasjay6544 Cheers pal.
The band is Laoch, album is
Eagal a ’bhàis.
@@blacksaltscotland Thanks man! Just heard the full album and I really liked it! My favourite song definitely is The Cairns, such a beautiful song!
@DrumWild Wow that sounds really cool! I'll check your band too haha
@DrumWild that's amazing, thanks for sharing the info, I might buy a CD when it comes out
I don’t think albums are entirely dead. I use streaming services on the daily. But it’ll never compare to buying a fresh press, opening it up and putting it on a turntable.
Even though I primarily listen to music on Spotify these days, I still usually listen to albums front to back at work, and I'm not adverse to buying albums I've found on Spotify either. I'll probably always be one of the minority that prefers full albums as a consumer.
OK hipster
I use streaming services for a first listen and then buy a physical copy of albums I like and there's a lot I like.
@@stevec6427 Yeah, I think they're best for discovering music, but I actually learned the hard way that Spotify only lets you download 10,000 songs per device. For most, that's probably fine, but I don't want to eat up all my data listening to music at work, and my library on the app is constantly growing, so at some point, I need to buy digital albums to have a much music on my phone locally as possible.
Yeah from a band you already know and are familiar with. If you’re dropping $28 bucks on a band you’ve never heard, I’ll be your friend for $100 a month.
From my observations, the most important thing about being an artist these days is shitloads of content for online consumption. Just keep making stuff and putting it out there as soon as it's ready. When you have enough material to compile an album, go for it if you want. Cater to whatever packaging your audience wants, if you can. Keep an open mind and keep creating and again: Content content content.
That’s a good point too. Giving a people a consistently updating catalogue to dig into is very valuable.
Oh straight up. That's where we are at these days. Everyone wants unlimited new content all the time. You hit the nail on the head.
I posted this in another comment thread on here, but Periphery is a great example.
That whole thing started with Misha writing and recording individual songs on his own in his bedroom and posting play through videos on forums like Meshforum and Seven-String forum.
He was just a solo artist being digested track by track via MySpace. Once his stuff gained traction, he put together a band (which I was going to audition for until he sent me Buttersnips which made me almost quit playing guitar), they played shows, they got signed, compiled the tracks he had done, added a few more, got it professionally mastered, and the rest is history.
TLDR: Misha made Periphery famous by playing guitar in his boxers.
Yep. So put that money into online marketing. An album that gets no notice has nothing on a single with ssd's ome traction.
Yeah, keep dumping out tons of shit! Doesn't matter if its any good just keep squeezing it out. That's the modern approach for sure.
I remember pooling all our money to record a demo in high school…. Had a good time, album never went anywhere. Save your money buy a minivan!
Shit man I remember doing the same thing we were so excited lol despite the engineer being a dickhead lol album went nowhere obviously but I still have like 20 of the albums left lol we even made the cover art one by one and printed the disc labels as well one by one lol good times man
@@jklo4377 our engineer was cool AF we printed (school printer) the black and white artwork and individually colored (colored pencils pens crayons what ever we had) the cassette inserts and an ass ton of stickers, we sold or gave away all 200 copy’s unless one of the other guys has a box somewhere. Did we recoup our costs? No . Did we learn a fuck ton of useable real world knowledge about recording… oh hell yes!! Would I do it again? Only if someone else is paying!
We're you guys named 'The Poo Ninjas"? 🤷😆
@@JC-11111 it was long long ago in a place far far away, however Poo and the nine nebulous Ninjatones review has a nice ring to it .
Just record yourself
That Betrayer album was pretty cool I'm glad you mentioned it in the last video.
You posted my comment on this video haha! That's awesome, love your show. I still stand behind what I wrote. Just prefer having a physical album (if possible) and I think a lot of people still do. I'm seeing young people buying and collecting vinyl now which is great and seeing kids trying to get more involved with music and not just streaming everything is also great. When you get whatever you want instantly you tend to take it for granted. I do download my music and add it to my phone after I buy an album so I don't totally hate technology and it's nice to not have giant books of CD's in my truck. You are right though, I think the way people listen to music with streaming services and such is the norm and if you don't get with the times you're gonna be left behind. It's still great when band make full albums and always look forward to buying them. Now get off my lawn!
8:40 Your clap here is perfection. From lip expression to hand posturing-youhitthenailonthehead
Know what I love about this channel? Even though you focus mainly on metal, I don't even have to be fan of metal to learn so much about music production. Thank you, Glenn. Wish I discovered your channel sooner.
Hey Glenn, albums are still better than EPs
Quality is quality, that's it. The world of music is changing and the culture of album has been there for decades, so there are many more excellent albums than EPs. The EP format is a lot more coherent and relevant nowadays though.
I'd rather buy an EP with 5 great tracks than an album full of filler
Of course, sometimes EPs leave wanting more, but I wouldn't necessarily say Albums are better than EPs. I'd honestly say EPs (and singles for that matter) are a great introduction to a new band I haven't heard before.
Agreed
@@stevec6427 sure
Ok, I love Megadeth. I actually also like Dave's vocals as well. Is he a good, let alone, a great singer?
Absolutely no way. Is his voice suited for Megadeth?
Yes.
Well said
Agreed! I fucking love Megadeth!
Hell, his voice is what makes Sweating Bullets such an entertaining song IMO. He's not good at singing but his voice MAKES that song. I'm only singling that one out because it was the one Glenn was quoting lol.
Yeah, Dave, Joe Elliott, Geddy Lee......their voices ain't technically great but they use them to their best effect and they've all been very successful. As has Rog Halford and David Coverdale to name but a few really technically brilliant singers. Enjoy 'em all just as much.
@@2112jonr Idk about Geddy Lee. He has a great sounding lower range IMO, and I don't really understand people's criticisms of his higher range either. Then again, I really like Dave Mustaine's vocals despite them not being THAT good from a technical standpoint, and my favourite vocalist of all time is James LaBrie, who gets a lot of shit online, so what do I know? Lol
Hey Glenn, long time subscriber and first time writing any comment.
Having first discovered my love for music in the late nineties while growing up in The Bronx, NY to living and chasing my dream as a rock artist and recording engineer in Southern California, I can attest to everything you have stated in relation to treating music as a fun, but serious business! All of the ideas and themes you discuss are staples for continued music industry success, furthermore these principles apply to continued success in MOST business settings.
Whether the "Diehard Preservationist" wants to acknowledge it or not, our behaviors in how we consume music and media are constantly changing form. Generally speaking, one who fails to adapt to current times will often grow reclusive and incessantly bitter at the society around oneself, failing to realize society has long moved on and simply put will NOT stop to acknowledge one's point of view any more than one does for oneself.
Look, we get it! If you don't want to make money playing music, knock yourself the fuck out! But from those of us who are playing and singing/screaming into a mic with a chip on shoulder looking to leave some sort of great impression on WHOEVER and HOWEVER LARGE our audience may be, Glenn I sincerely thank you for speaking facts!
Kind Regards To All,
"Jhoni" (pronounced like regular ol' "Jhonny")
I'm really loving your content recently keep it up🔥
I wish I had commented on the original video. My band recorded a 15 song album back in 2003-2004. We were prolific writers, and wanted to get everything recorded. Our attitude was definitely that every song we wrote was the best thing anyone would ever listen to. The band lasted about another 2 years after that.
Anyway, years later, after getting smarter about things, I thought, “it would have been much better to concentrate on 1-3 songs, instead of letting our hubris think people wanted to hear 15 songs from a band no one heard of.”
Good to see you putting out that exact advice. I’m definitely under the impression good advice to musicians could hurt your bottom line in some ways. Kudos to you!
Can't wait next episodes coming up! When we will get videos about Amp elitists or outboard gear elitists? I'm really excited for the "Producers who haven't actually sold any significant ammount of records telling people how they should treat their product", that is going to be a banger!
@@elroxmusic Not really. I just find it interesting, that Glenn keeps complaining about everything sounding the same when his baseline is that all the musicians sound like shit and everyone that has their "own sound" still should record through his amps when coming to his studio. I've been watching him for a long time now, and what he keeps asking? Integrity, that a band should do their own thing and not follow trends and what's hot at the moment - this is metal after all. And next you know, he's telling reasons why bands shouldn't record full albums anymore and focus on recording singles - like every other band in every genre seems to be doing.
He won't make a video about himself
@@KeepTheGates Most likely not. I'm just saying that if we're supposed to get on with the times within the music industry, we shouldn't actually make complete works of music at all. 30 seconds in Instagram or TikTok or TH-cam is the way to go today, so why bother even with the single or EP releases?
Meanwhile all the TH-camrs are telling us how Glenn is right, while not actually releasing songs that much - they're making videos about releasing songs. They're making content for social media. While they have their points that I can agree with, in my opinion there is a difference between making music, and making endless videos about "10 cliches in metal guitar", which generate clicks and views, which generates the income of a TH-camr and social media influencer. But is it the same thing as making and releasing music? In my opinion, no.
@@selenemoon2249 I agree 100%. If you want to make music for the large chunk of society that had an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish with down syndrome then yes, it's probably a bad idea to record and release an album. Most of the producers and engineers I respect and look up to are making a living producing albums and usually don't make videos for social media or really give a fuck about view count on any posts they do make. They're all passionate about making records, as are basically all of the bands that put out music that moves me personally. Most of them haven't achieved commercial success outside of an underground following and that's perfectly fine. I honestly haven't seen any youtubers or "iNfLuEnCeRs" put out any music that compares to what actual bands put out, yet they have plenty of videos about making music. At the end of the day, people can do what the fuck they want to. For me personally, I think albums are the way to go and I really hate how the majority of people have moved towards wanting a "bAnGeR" of a song that's no more than 3 minutes, then they want to move on to the next bAnGeR from the next band. Not my style and I don't really care if it's popular or not. All of this probably contributes to why metal has gone stale.
@@KeepTheGates I can agree with you. To get back to the point of the video, I can agree with Glenn that yeah, making an album is probably going to be a financial disaster. But atleast you got albums worth of music to play live, and maybe one of the songs starts to catch up with the audience - if the single fails, the whole produced package is done, and you betting all your effort on that one song didn't lead you anywhere.
What I would like to know, is how other producers and studio owners feel about this? How they feel about someone on their field of work basically telling audiences "you shouldn't spend your money on the studio that makes our living"? To me it feels really weird, and I find it hard to believe that a studio owner and a record producer would really shoot themself in the leg (or what the saying is in English, anyway) out of the goodness of their heart. Totally different thing if you consider yourself a TH-camr more than a producer or studio owner, then you're generating content while slandering the profession that didn't work out for you as well as you hoped - and you're not undermining your actual profession and work.
Your love of the Focusrite red is very well founded. That thing is amazing! Good bye to line noise, and hello to quality sound and routing!
One thing about world heading to streaming, a wonderful and a terrible thing simultaneously! Its awesome that distribution, which used to be a major headache is solved! Its good for archiving, organization and integration.
On the dark side, its a catastrophe for cash flow if you're not Katy Perry. If you are getting paid .001 for a song, the magnificent achievement of 10,000 streams won't make you Jack. Imagine the work or money it takes to get those streams and yet you get back nothing. This is a shit model when you figure in the extreme inflation which is constant because of rapacious governments & elites stealing through money printing. At some point one will need to stream 100 million to pay the electric bill. A terrible model for the illusion of making money with music.
hi glenn, im so glad you bring attention to both sides of the music industry and help musicians learn what to do/avoid.
where i live there are still those few bands who just care about being the heaviest rather than being the best. For the most part bands in my neck of the woods do care about making music that they are proud of and is well constructed. i think a lot of the good bands around here watch your videos, keep up the good work glenn
Thanks for pointing out that most musicians are recording at home, myself included. I went out and took the dive into buying a Universal Audio Apollo Twin MKII. I’m looking to buy several Behringer audio interfaces and link them via optical cables, which is one of the reasons why I went with the Apollo. In doing so, I can record just about everything at once live, or record close mic’d drums and work from there. Having the mics is an issue right now, but there are some pretty good ones that I can use for the time being.
i prefer to put on albums front to back(on spotify) as opposed to listening to songs from a bunch of different bands thrown together, but i also have the self awerness to know i'm a rare breed; and catering your business model for folk like me isn't a good financial move
I never cared where the music business is headed or where it is. I do it because I like to play guitar. 🤷♂️ I would never make creative decisions based on “where we are at these days.” If you want to do an album, do it. If you want to do a single, do it.
i accepted that i wont make a dime in music. i pursue it only for my satisfaction. my first of 12 albums will drop next year, CD only. my goal is to die an unknown and be discovered 100 years after im gone. Mozart all the way baby.
Amen to that
I have put ten albums and like 16 EPs out since I started in 2015 and it's totally just for fun. A lot of them are concept albums so it had to be in album format. However, I have in fact made a singular dollar off of my music.
Adam Green, a horror director, had this to say about film school: If you have the money to burn, go to film school. But don't go into debt for it.
You will never know how great the timing of this message is for me.
Dude!! Your last video I felt was very good advice and was also very inspiring! I’ve been sitting on a couple songs and waiting to get enough for an album or EP but I literally have no musical following so your single approach made it seem more accessible to me.
I totally understand where you're coming from, but I do have something I wanted to share related to this. I was in a band one time where I could tell we just weren't going to write any new songs until we got the current live-set recorded. I took it upon myself to do the work and that's when I really started learning how to record. Now, we did press too many (this was the early '00s so short-runs weren't really a thing yet), but it did exactly the thing I wanted it to do. We MOVED ON!! Musicians can get pretty precious with their songs (and they have limited memory) and an album can serve as a way to get together, back-up those songs, create some memories, and then wipe the slate clean and start workshopping new material. Yeah, you probably will lose some money, but if you're doing it yourselves and you don't print too many it can be pretty minimal. And, as a side-benefit everyone just got a little better at multi-tracking and layering/overdubbing.
I never comment but you said you read them. My wife and I make dark kinda alt/live instrument music. We love your channel. It's one of very few "rock" pages we watch together. Love the content. Preach the good word of musicians actually caring about the art and not the ego. Hope you know we love you man.
The bands I were in about 20 years ago, released albums that financially, went nowhere and not because they were bad- not at all!
Competent musicians, good songs,crappy distribution,weak follow up with live shows and battle of egos were factors, but the truth is that even back then, when something was released, was automatically public domain through file distribution services like Napster.
So, as Glenn says, if you just want something to show to your friends, it's okay to release an album- but don't expect to make money out of it, or even break even for that matter!
We are recording our album wih my current band and although I shared my experiences and said it would be best to record a single, make a decent video, upload it and see how it goes ( before I watched Glenn's video),
they were like " We get it, but we don't care about money. We stopped making music for 25 years to focus on career and family and now that we can afford it, we're doing it oldschool."
So, vanity project.... as long as they don't press me financially, I'll try to make the best out of it.
Ok, he gave some advices for the artists who want to make music their career, but there is one thing that proves why albums are still worth making - conceptual album.
I know that conceptual albums are very niche thing, but if you want to tell a huge story, for instance, a mere single won't be enough. Of course, you can make a coceptual EP but it doesn't provide a big room for a story with lots of events and details.
Album is a vast field of experiments when it comes to the concept.
Hey Glenn, cheers from North Carolina. I've made albums for years in various and they really are a lot of time and effort for something with a small payoff. I've come to a lot of similar conclusions that you have listed of in these past 2 videos. So basically I have switched over to dropping singles, ep's & splits with other bands. Since switching to this 1 to 3 song at a time approach, writing and recording is way smoother. We have gained some traction online as well as started moving units of our old "Full-Length" that was collecting dust. We are still a metal band so that only equates to a few copies a month, we still work our day jobs lol.
Now trends are cyclical and the market is currently like how it was in the 40s & 50s, running off of singles and ep's. The album might return in 40 years or something. It's not a bad thing. Also instead of just shoving all of your pre-recorded singles into a release, people can make it special, release re-recorded versions and drop it on an old analog format. Hell, mic up everything and have a rehearsal jam of the singles, then drop that on a tape or vinyl. In limited physical numbers, people eat that shit up. Basically using streaming to drop singles, keeps you in the algorithm and build an audience. Then you can afford to drop money on physical media you can accurately get to an audience you can measure. This is at least how I've come to terms with the modern industry.
Anyway, Love the videos. Keep up the good work man.
I still value albums more than singles or EPs. I get that people have lower attention span these days, but honestly there are still albums out there which have basicly no filler songs. I grew up listening to albums. When I want to check out a band, I listen to their albums. One of the reasons that I couldn't get into electronic music much, because they don't produce albums. It sucks that album enjoyers are a minority these day. Chase the art, not the money.
People have to stop writing novels too. Consumers only have time for short stories in podcast form wrapped with commercials before hitting delete and moving forward.
/Sarcasm
More than having low attention span, making an album is different than making singles. The advice is kinda good if you consider that most starting bands aren't full time musicians and trying to make +8 songs is really hard to make without some sounding pretty meh. Heck, even bands back in the day knew they had filler songs and "the good songs" were the ones that ended up on radio and tv. If is art quality is more preferable than quantity.
There are a lot of electronic artists that make albums. Especially when you go back to the golden era circa 90's - early 00's. To be honest there's also been a lot in the last 5 years or so on the underground level. Anyway, I agree 100%. There is nothing like a good album. They are the releases that tend to stand the test of time. For me as a producer/musicians?recording artist, it's all about creating and documenting the best piece of art possible. Being concerned about if it's trendy or not to release an album at a given moment in time is irrelevant to me. There have been a lot of albums that were not well recieved or did poorly in sales when they were released only to later become classics.
@@Abruzzo333 Any good examples for electronic artists that release full length albums?
I know of The Prodigy, Boris Brejcha and Jean Micheal Jarre (the GOAT [and grandfather] of electronic music imo)
It's really funny how pretty much the most valuable thing of your point is that albums just take more money than they make these days, and yet people took that as if you were saying people shouldn't be allowed to buy and sell physical albums. Had to add: Also don't you know? Losing money is every musicians favorite thing! Ask the guitarists about that one! They sure know how to blow their entire bank and go in debt just to get a Gibson.
"Do what system wants". That's so metal.
lol
Not into "metal" for such a long time. Your videos help so many people into "alternative or 80's metal"
Thanks again
Mike
I released my first CD last year... it took me years to write/record/mix etc as it was all done in those rare moments I could snatch some spare time away from work/family etc etc... it was recorded so I could leave a reminder to my kids and family of who I am and what I do and love... I'm in my mid 50's and my dad died 13 years ago and I know very little about him so I didn't what that to be the case with me... it sounds a bit morbid but that was the main reason... The recording was intended to be a document and it was always intended to be a freebie and so far, I've given away about 20 to immediate family and a few friends (min order was 250 so a couple of full boxes left over!!) ... I just wanted to leave a physical item behind that one of my kids will look at and listen to one day and say "Yeah, my old man did that..."
That Mustaine impression absolutely fucking killed me
I do ĺive sound, and when working with bands I always buy their album on hard copy, Its like trophies for me. And makes me feel proud to support the artists(live instrument full bands only)
I completely agree. I do live sound for bands, too. I buy their merch so they can keep on making music. LPs CDs and t-shirts.
Hey dude, thanks a heap for bring up the subject of how all-important the speakers are. The same is absolutely true for stereo systems, PAs, studio monitors, movie theaters, and even cars. Bless you Glenn.
Just the first point after the intro is basically what Humanity's Last Breath did with Valde. Four singles pre release i think and it just worked. Can't imagine a week of work (consultant/inspector for water pollutants and their vessels, four-five hours on the road in a day) without it hehe
I believe you're right that making an album is most likely a bad investment (from a business perspective). You can argue from a marketing perspective that it gives a band exposure, but unless that exposure results in making back your full monetary investment (or you have cash to burn), it's difficult to justify doing so.
Tying into this (somewhat), I'm glad I have a day job to support my time and investment into making music that I enjoy making, but I'm still cheap and would prefer to record/edit everything at home 😆 It doesn't sounds great and there's most likely little to no chance of me being successful as a musician since I opt to "attempt" at writing music that is unconventional, if not off-putting, in terms of song structure, going off key and/or scale, blah, blah, blah 🤘 but it's fun to do it.
Loving the videos, Glenn! Stumbled across your channel a few days ago and catching up. Just recorded my first album. Bass player here footing the bill, just so you know we're not all stone-ass broke.
You're objectively correct on this point, but, well, I make music for my own internal compulsion to do so, and big concept albums are the music I most like making. I'm content to be equivalent to folks that race horses or shoot black powder flintlocks because they're fun, with no illusions that its practical. Anyone who wants to make a living on it though, yeah, singles are the move
I made my album simply because I grew up on albums and wanted my own. Now I have one.
My band made two full length "albums(CDs). We got real lucky, in that our guitar player knew someone who was building out his studio, helped him build it. We got free recording time on a 2" 24 track deck. We worked quickly, did all the songs on the floor, usually one take. We overdubbed solos and vocals. This happened while OJ was doing his low speed chase 'cause we watched it happen on the studio monitor. The second album we recorded in our rehearsal space on an 8 track ADAT(remember those?). Arty friends did both album covers. Except for the pressing, it was free. The pressing cost $1300 for 1000 copies. Same for the first album.
There are ways to record an album on the cheap. The more people you know in your scene, the better. Also, if you are considering recording a physical CD or album, buy plain CD covers and cases, and have stickers made of your album art. Then all you have to do is have a sticker party and have all your friends over and sticker the album.
Just for some positive reinforcement on that last video... very hot take. But it was great! It honestly was what I needed to hear about the truth of the album. I've been thinking recently about the fact that nobody I know listens to vinyls or CD's anymore. Everything is instant! No one wants to pay for music and they shouldn't want to! Not only that, no one sits down and really deconstructs music anymore. No one listens to the drums and how they sound under the bass, no ones saying "oh I really like that guitar riff" no, they're listening to the mastered studio sounds and nothing else. No one plays albums front to back unless they're buying a physical copy. (Which again, is now nobody.) People barely EVER replay live concerts anymore either. Music is changing and if we want to make projects that reflect older music tastes (like in the punk scene where making your own record label was a huge thing) then we have to expect a smaller audience. Like you said in your video, the Amish are fucking dominating the horse and buggy market. And now for the artistically inclined musician, it's (just as it always has been) about finding a balance between working in the system, while working against the system. Anywho, Fuck you Glenn! Can't wait for the next video!
We love your rants though Glenn, never edit those out haha!
Ironically, I learned a lot about how to record my band's full length album from this channel.. only to stumble upon this video... lol 😆
I like albums because I like CDs. And I like CDs because I like the object. I like the cover, the booklet, the design and the layout. And the sound of opening the jewelcase.
Also that's my way of supporting the artists, since I do not have a lot of opportunities to see them live.
But that's a personal (and maybe generational) choice. To each their own.
And streaming or purely digital is for when I'm not at home or to discover new stuff.
Couldn't have said it better >:) 3 albums for us in 2021 so far and still going. 65 mins for one and 76 mins for the 2nd. CD to it's fullest!
I really like compilation albums, kinda like how legendary bands put out a "Greatest Hits" album which contain songs that were recorded over many years and of course sound different from each other.
What ever happened to the 3 - 4 song EP? Loved those from small local bands, I still remember getting a free one from a local band that played our high school one lunch time, still Remember the name of the band and wish I still had the CD. They ended up disappearing from the scene a few years later, and am sure they were glad they didn't drop a whole lot of money on a full length release.
Advice for metal frontmen: take some theater acting lessons. Specifically musical theater.
And watch how Bruce Dickinson performs and rules the stage
Glenn: "Hello me! Meet the real me!"
My wife: why are sat there giggling away to yourself??
sounds like beavis and butt-head impression
I come from a metal background, but I primarily mix edm these days. Still my favorite production channel to this day 🤘🏻
if my music only gets one person's attention, that's still one person who felt something from my art. as far as my band, a crowd of 5 or 500, I play every shoe like it's my last(who knows what will happen tomorrow), and it pays off. Live shows and merch are the route to success, and if you don't over order or overpay to produce the album it falls under merch....but that's just my opinion.
I still buy albums, and keep them on playback. Pete Thorn, Ragdoll, Helium Road, Jay Parmar, Shawn Tubbs… Espen Kraft. Each of these is an extension of your recording channel, you can talk to each of them personally here on TH-cam. 😮 Rick Beato produced Chris Green, amazing album. And you can talk to Rick about it on his evening live streams, I have done it. I have tremendous respect for you Glenn, and there’s no one else who I’ve tried to glean advice from more than you. And I’ve been watching Warren for many years. I just like good rock music, and don’t really get into angry metal music, never have. I like good music! If you haven’t heard Ragdoll’s Back To Zero, you’re missing out. The whole album jams, I recommend the extended cut. Pete Thorn, exceptional.
Even during the decades when vinyl albums were the thing, it was very rare that entire albums were top notch songs. But don't let anything stop you from your art. Even the fact that virtually no one will care
Glenn I have a Heil 4-12 top box that I drive with a Fender Dual Showman. I have had this rig since the 80s and a while back I was trying to improve the sound quality of the setup.
After reading a few articles on the internet and in a few mags I took the back of the cabinet off and put a mattress pad , foam rubber that resembled egg cartons, and lined the inside of cabinet, sides and back. It really tightened up the tone and the bass is much better .
That being said, I can totally understand how speakers, the end of the signal chain can make such a great difference in the final tone of your system.
About releasing songs individually, my friends in Cane Hill have been releasing songs over the pandemic and have been getting huge numbers without even being signed to a label
I used to run a rehearsal studio that saw about 150 bands run through a week and EVERY single band thought they were the next Oasis, Metallica or Queen. I'd say about 4-5 bands actually sounded great, the rest were 100 percent delusional. It's crazy how many bands think they're going to hit the big time and sell millions of albums.
When you have a physical storage unit that fits a certain amount of product it makes sense to fill it somewhat, considering all the trouble of releasing it for sale.
For music it used to be vinyls, cassettes, CD's.
Then technology happened.
Great show Glenn and great points! \m/
Releasing Singles actually work guys.
This year we (Toxikull band) instead of releasing another album we decided to release "Warriors Collection", a collection of 6 singles promoted individually to be released through the year in our digital platforms.
The collection is being released physically too in the format of a 6 Slot Box Set, where every collector can put all the cardboard sleeve singles inside.
This way we can focus on the digital promotion, to reach new fans and give something physicall to our die hard fans. And guess what, it is actually working, because very single we release is an opportunity to promote as if you released an album, and currently we are selling not just the collection to our old fans, but our previous albuns and the collection to our new fans.
On the other hand, if you're an band from the NWOTHM underground scene and if you have already some name on the scene, you still have to release something physical, there are good labels and distributors who can promote you in the real scene and there are a lot of people buying CD's.
Conclusion: To release and album, you must have some fans, otherwise you should start by singles. (As Glenn said)
Side note: Back in 2000 my band paid my Canadian childhood friend to record our 17 song album. It only cost us $400 and he mixed if for us. We went to Guitar Center to convert the DAT tape to CD and ran it through one of their compressors. They let us sit there for over an hour and a half copying each song and they didn't take any money from us and we did offer to pay.
I like theme based albums so I'm going to do them, but I also release singles side by side, and the albums are shorter cus the narrative skits between every song (that can be omitted if you just want the songs). Ends up being about an album of content every 6 months to a year and the singles allow me to diverge from the thematic tones and style of the album. Use the singles reel in people to take the gamble on your more passionate project with the album. Guess I'll see if it works this winter.
Yo Glen, (forgive me, English is not my first language) you fucking rock! I dropped outta producing music in my late 20s thinking that I didn't have shit to offer. Lost what I thought was the Midas touch due to alcohol and heavy drug use. I said "fuck this shit!" and called it quits when I lost my older brother to cancer. My wife introduced me to your videos and I gotta thank her for that. Fucking inspiring shit! Struggled to stay clean in my 30s and just last year, I picked up where I left off and took the studio work seriously. Back then I used to think I was a big shot but there are were plenty of things you've pointed out that I never heard of. "That I am the best" mentality prevented me from actually exploring new gear, new techniques so on and so on. Began making sense of things that I wasnt capeable of understanding back I was a doped up 20 something year old. Turning 41 this month. Comepletely clean & Sober and business is fucking booming. A thousand+ thank yous and much appreciate your wisdom. Rock On Glen!
I can totally see the logic in your single approach. I personally like the EP approach. I've found that means you have to really look at your set and pick the best 3-4 tracks. Sometimes you find out you haven't got 3-4 good tracks, and that's an important lesson. Plus I've found it useful for promoters etc to get a bit more of a view of your stuff. We've often picked a title track and made a video for that.
I once ran a small small label. I was going to put out an album by a debut artist. I got carried away. The promo company we used were great. They refused to take my money. They said they couldn't get it to anyone who would care, because creating the buzz around a debut artist on an unknown label (we were only 5 EP releases in) was near impossible. This was 12 years ago.
Also, there are other ways to release singles. I odn't know if you've heard of The Wildhearts. The main songwriter/singer released a single, digitally, once a month for a year. it meant he could explore different styles, had time each month to build a bit of buzz and a year of attention from fans.
I'm one of those "artsy" guys and I can say that making an album is a terrible idea unless you're signed to a label and/or a fan base big enough to make money back on the record. Good art can still be sold, stop being a snob. Glenn is right
Thanks for the reality check Glenn. Ive been thinking about this exact thing for the past year or so. We still have the vocals to record which will get done after I go through Chris Liepes course because 'draft' vocals sounded like shit. Initally an 11 song album, but after your video, i grudgingly picked out the singles and the EPs. Ive invested way too much into this to have it all end with a small fizzle.
my reggae band im in has been taking the approach of "singles over albums/EPs" and it really does work. we have been doing this since the beginning of the pandemic and although, this might not work for everyone. this is the new way of music. the punk band i was in about 4-5 years ago recorded a full album and got absolutely nowhere. all we have is a box full of albums to show for it. dont be afraid of change. i love albums, but singles are the way to go. people have the attention span of a fly lol.
Love your stuff man, and a partially agree with what you said in the last video, but I don’t think it’s entirely true. If everyone jumped ship from things the masses don’t want, then we would all be image dragons.
As a studio owner and producer I would like to address the "how will studios survive" part of this video with what I tell my own clients: not much has to change in terms of how a band handles a recording schedule depending on their commitment and experience level, you're just not releasing them as a collection anymore. When you go into the studio and track 6 songs in that mindset you're simply batching content and depending on your deal with the studio engineer you can actually make this an economical process for at least the basics if you're tight enough and then it becomes more fiscally reasonable to do the rest of the production/mixing staggered with a proper release schedule. If a band or artist considers things in this fashion, laying the groundwork for 6 songs in one go and then staggering the rest, then you could essentially have an entire year of releases planned out if you're dropping a single every other month without nearly the stress mentally or financially that comes with gearing up for all of them at once.
Evening Glen. Have just watched both your album vids and feel the need to chip in. My band are currently writing our 4th studio album, and will be recording in over the winter ready for our 20th birthday celebration and tour in 2022. From my / our experience the album is far from dead, but having said that you are dead right about a lot of what you said regarding new bands. When we started out in the early 2000s we first did a two track single, followed by a three track ep, then a live mini album recorded at a local festival before starting on our first full length release.
Since then our albums have all made a small profit. However there a few things that mark us out from small new bands (not for a minute claiming we are megastars or anything) 1) We are older guys aged between 45 and 60, all of us have been in other bands on our local scene, so even when the band was 'new' we weren't exactly unknowns. 2) Although our audience ranges from teenagers to aging bikers and dead head type hippies (we play heavy stoner type space rock - think Black Sabbath meets Pink Floyd and Hawkwind), a lot of our followers LIKE albums in physical formats. Last year we put out a digital four track ep, deciding not to do physical release, and we got a shed load of complaints because it WASN'T released on CD, and was ONLY four songs. Our physical sales at least match our download sales. 3) We keep our overheads low, We have our own rehearsal room that can be used for recording and two of us have pretty good home studios as well, We do use outside studios, but keep that time to a minimum, mainly we spend a couple of days in one doing live takes of the tunes to get that raw from the floor feel, then take it home for over dubs and tweeks before shipping out for mastering. All art work etc is also done in house.4)Finally we only produce limited runs of CDs, 100 or 200 at a time, and when stocks run low we do another press (our 2007 debut album is on its 6th run at the moment).
So from my stand point the album is far from dead, and I for one would rather hear a well crafted 10 track album than a rushed throw away 3 song ep. BUT for the young and inexperienced outfit diving into an album is a hiding to nothing. As you said start small and work up to the big things, keep routed in reality and don't let the ego run away with you.
Peace.
That's great to hear, Jon!
In a small town I live in, there's rarely musicians around. So I decided to be the jack of all trades/producer/mixer.
LOVE the thumbnail! 10 out of 10.
Check out Lordi's album Killection. It's a fictional compilation album with the idea of what the band could've sounded like had they been around for example in the 70's or the 80's. They used multiple studios, producers and recording engineers and didn't let them listen to what the others had done. They also used equipment from whatever era they were trying to emulate. This way every single song sounds completely different. It's a big fuck you to the music business telling that an album has to have one sound.
Amen to the single/compilation idea. I write, record and release a new track every month and then do an acoustic compilation of the last few releases. I just do this part time and started doing this to force myself how to get better at writing and recording. If your goal is getting your stuff noticed, pay to play is the only way. Manufacture some songs that will fit TV and movies and hit up music supervisors. Try Zire, paid reverb nation ads, collaborative playlists etc, but there’s sooooooo much music out there, it’s impossible to get noticed unless you have money, a PR person and know people.
Based on experience, for a no-name metal act, it's easier to get traction if you have an EP with at least 3-songs. Many underground music review sites are not interested in singles. Underground music folks are more conservative when it comes to music consumption. Many acts also release physical material exclusively and just put their stuff on the web after year or after their stocks run out. A lot of you would call that elitism but I think getting a hundred CDs sold is easier than having to wait a thousand streams on spotify.
I used to be more about albums, or in a sense, having entire discography’s of artists on my iPod or phone, whether I was a major fan of them or just giving them a chance. But then I kept skipping over songs that I never wanted to listen to, and they were taking up space.
Now I only listen to entire albums for the bands I’m a big follower of, and for the artists I like but don’t follow regularly, I just keep the songs I like. I’d rather have a collection of killer, not filler.
Glenn, I'd love to see an in-depth video dedicated to EQ, covering your take on the more popular different methods and styles, and in context for each stage of production in the home studio. Also, perhaps, your preferred methods at each stage and why you prefer those methods could be helpful to us, as well. Anyway, thanks for all the great info...again!
Definitely a more measured approach than the last video. Kudos.
Being the audio snob that I admittedly am, Spotify can blow me from a quality point of view but also for several other reasons too, including how much they rip off the artist.
While I acknowledge that CDs have gone the same way as vinyl, in that it is for collectors of the whole package as both audible and visual art (Devin Townsend made that argument with his unboxing of "Empath"), I'm content with digital delivery if it permits offline copies of FLAC files. Therefore, I'm all for buying FLACs from whomever publishes in that format, such as Bandcamp, HDTracks, etc. Definitely nothing that's in MQA format, please!
I want copies of the music to live on my storage for me to access whenever and however I choose. That includes the media player that I built and integrated into my car's infotainment system. If it's not available as a downloadable FLAC, then CD it is but in short, streaming services can gargle my balls.
*completely unrelated * That section where you reading off the note pad took me back to the days I used to wait tables LOL
Album releases done right can totally work. The funny thing is, CDs are mostly dead, but fans recently love vinyl. My band dropped an album this year, with a ton of promotional and adjacent content, promoted the heck out of it, and sold through our first pressing in just pre-sales. Before touring, it’s hard to get a fan base excited about a single, versus a new record. I do think singles/EP are the right choice for brand new artists.
I love the album format, the concept behind it, this is the way I relate to bands. That said, I agree with you 100%, specially as new bands are considered. Today, a very good video will do a band much better than a mediocre succession of derivative songs.
As a failed musician I can totally agree. Making an album is a very risky task if you don't have an audience at all and if you're not a musician full time and the reward is pretty mixed. You can say "yeah, I made an album", but at what cost?
Making and album forces you to divide your attention to X amount of songs and as much as you try, some songs will have less attention than others.
I tried to make an album but ended up scraping almost all of the material because it was trash, at the end of the day I ended up making "singles" to play along some covers in some garage concert. It made me happier.
It took 3 years to record our last album... But we are releasing the song in singles to stretch out the amount of time with "new music"...
I just fucking love this channel.
Hey Glenn! Do you think you can start a story time series? I'm obsessed with your rants and I'd love to see you tell funny stories you have from the past. Even if they're not music related. Would sound really fun!
It makes a lot of sense to put out singles to test/validate how good your music is in a tighter release schedule compared to releasing an album. I can see that being much more efficient from a cost and time perspective.
I felt like releasing albums were important because they represented a snapshot in time, but it's possible that singles do a better job of that.
I still buy vinyl/CD's and it's kind of heartbreaking that these things may go away soon. At the same time, maybe it will free up musicians to take more creative risks? I guess only time will tell.
Victor Blakey is absolutely right! I read an interview with Steven Tyler when I was just starting out and he said "no one comes out to hear your songs, they come out to see a show".
That stuck with me, especially when I see a band just staring down at their guitars the whole time.
HA! I had JUST put out a "Tornado of Souls" drum cover out this morning on here. Great impersonations, man. I love it!!!!😂🤘
I tend to do a series of singles, them i switch things up a little in terms of sonics and promotion. It's a good way to test the waters and find out what you are willing to do in order to get noticed.
Check out the Artist, Tom MacDonald. He's a Canadian Rapper, living in the states. Tom is Completely Independent....No label, no manager, no publicist, nothing. Just him (He writes all the songs, creates all the beats/music, records everything himself), Nova (his girl, she helps Tom with the hooks, tapes/directs all the videos, is a GREAT singer/rapper in her own right) and Evan (Mixes/Masters all of Tom's songs). That's it.
Tom puts out singles/videos and then eventually packages everything; the singles plus songs that are "unreleased" (songs that Tom puts out in videos he will release to streaming services) as a CD. He is THE Poster Child for being an Independent artist that is slaying it. I'm an over 50 metal head, that grew up on Maiden, Metallica and Megadeth; but Tom is something completely different. I'm not asking you to review Tom, just look into him PERSONALLY and what he's doing.
To be honest i dont think the man can even get signed if he wanted to, purely for publicity sake, lol.
Unless you're in the studio with an artist never overhype them.
"Hello me, meet the real me" - you owe me a coffee, spat mine all over the desk when I saw that
I'm looking forward to your stuff about recording at home!
In response to your point at 4:04, I do think it's worth noting that the small number of die hard individuals who want a physical CD are probably also the people who are going to be most willing to drop money on your band/project and continue to do so. I think that speaks to the whole idea of building a core audience of die hard fans. It may just be a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation because you need to throw those guys a bone where you can, but you also need to follow the way the industry is going to stay or become relevant.