One Hundred Fifty-Two Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 Anyone use mechanical licenses to clear samples? I contacted the large one, Harry Fox, but was wondering if anyone had first hand experience. I'd like to punk out a non-punk record, but it contains many samples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shamrocks Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 so just to get started, im looking at putting out another artists release on vinyl. This is a band that put out one release, on the primary members label, which appears to be defunct, although the member is still playing solo. Is it kosher to just email this guy and say "id like to put this record out on vinyl?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry47591 Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 so just to get started, im looking at putting out another artists release on vinyl. This is a band that put out one release, on the primary members label, which appears to be defunct, although the member is still playing solo. Is it kosher to just email this guy and say "id like to put this record out on vinyl?" Yes that would probably be you first step. xjustinxschwierx 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noalarmplanet Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I'm working on my own label and this thread is invaluable. For those that have labels do you pay a lawyer for any services? Do you recommend one? My dad is real estate lawyer so I had him look over my LLC paperwork but entertainment law is way different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One Hundred Fifty-Two Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Anyone use mechanical licenses to clear samples? I contacted the large one, Harry Fox, but was wondering if anyone had first hand experience. I'd like to punk out a non-punk record, but it contains many samples. To answer my own question: They responded and said that samples had to be cleared with the publisher, you can't just pay mechanical royalties. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emo Revival Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I'm working on my own label and this thread is invaluable. For those that have labels do you pay a lawyer for any services? Do you recommend one? My dad is real estate lawyer so I had him look over my LLC paperwork but entertainment law is way different. I used legal zoom to file my llc paper work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noalarmplanet Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 I used legal zoom to file my llc paper work. We did that for the LLC but do you use one to look over what you get from labels or bands? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emo Revival Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 We did that for the LLC but do you use one to look over what you get from labels or bands? I use friends in law school, but most lawyers can do it for you, and hopefully won't charge you too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry47591 Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 We did that for the LLC but do you use one to look over what you get from labels or bands? We had one help us do our first album, but now we just reuse it for every release. Changing what needs changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shamrocks Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 so for a record thats pretty quiet, mostly acoustic with two singers - would it sound better pressed on heavier weight vinyl or would that not be necessary (i dont mind which, just trying to make sure the sound is optimized) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emo Revival Posted February 18, 2013 Share Posted February 18, 2013 so for a record thats pretty quiet, mostly acoustic with two singers - would it sound better pressed on heavier weight vinyl or would that not be necessary (i dont mind which, just trying to make sure the sound is optimized) I'd have the lacquers cut somewhere like Lucky Lacquers so that they can boost the volume. Heavier vinyl wont do much. I had mine cut at lucky and he boosted the sound by ~9 db and it sounds perfect, so you probably want something like that. larry47591 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrrom92 Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 so for a record thats pretty quiet, mostly acoustic with two singers - would it sound better pressed on heavier weight vinyl or would that not be necessary (i dont mind which, just trying to make sure the sound is optimized) You'll wanna have it cut somewhere that uses a vms80 lathe to get maximum volume on the disc and press it using virgin vinyl. Weight won't matter, the quietness of the plastic will. And the hotter your record is cut, the less you'll have to rely on that plastic being perfectly silent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 please don't have a mastering engineer blast out the volume of your acoustic-based record. your s's will be ssssuper ssssibilant and the record will be prone to other surface noise issues in the pressing stage. better to go with a more dynamic master cut at a modest (but not especially quiet) volume. gotta groove's go to is http://www.wellmademusic.net/ and i would trust clint 100% with any rock record. heavyweight vinyl is a safer bet if you can afford it, as the resistance to warping allows folks at the plant to tune in the machine for sound a bit more. a lot of that tuning in has everything to do with heating and cooling of the record, so a more resilient record can be tuned in a bit better without warping. tofucarnage 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bearchuck Posted March 13, 2013 Share Posted March 13, 2013 heavyweight vinyl is a safer bet if you can afford it, as the resistance to warping allows folks at the plant to tune in the machine for sound a bit more. a lot of that tuning in has everything to do with heating and cooling of the record, so a more resilient record can be tuned in a bit better without warping. Well that's definitely news to me. Can you explain this a little more? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 180g records were originally made because they were more resistant to warping. a lot of warping occurs as a necessary evil in the pressing process. the reason for this is that more heat (usually) = better filling of the grooves with vinyl. a lot of noisy records (most notably ones that are noisy at the beginning of each side) are that way because vinyl didn't fill those first few grooves. a press running 180g vinyl starts with a bigger biscuit (the hockey puck shaped piece that becomes a record) can be heated a lot more before warping, resulting in less surface noise, especially at the beginnings of sides. this doesn't mean that every 180g record is going to have pristine sound, just that the resistance to warping works to the advantage of 180g records. plus 180g records cost more... so any plant with a good business plan would take special care to make sure their most expensive records are held to the highest quality standard. daysaves, konk and tofucarnage 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zacooper Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 Ok VC, so I'm looking to do my first pressing. The place I'm looking to license from says they normally wave master and publishing royalties and ask for 50% of the pressing. That seems like a lot to me but as this is my first go round I'm not sure whether I'm getting a better or worse deal than just an upfront licensing fee. I'm not sure that the demand is there to do a massive pressing of the two albums I'm looking at and was just planning on an initial run of 500 or less for each. I was looking to just do this as a hobby on the side and charge cost for the records, not taking my time into account. If I give them 50% of the pressing obviously it will instantly double the price I need to charge for each individual record and then I'm worried that they can price cheaper and with the limited demand would possibly make it impossible for me to break even in selling my copies. Thoughts, advice, suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronzimmer Posted May 10, 2013 Share Posted May 10, 2013 Another Vinyl manufacturing plant worth mentioning: Furnace MFG in Fairfax, VA http://www.furnacemfg.com I've done 2 jobs with them, an LP and a brand new 7". Top quality everything...seriously not one complaint. FYI.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waytansea27 Posted May 23, 2013 Share Posted May 23, 2013 Ok VC, so I'm looking to do my first pressing. The place I'm looking to license from says they normally wave master and publishing royalties and ask for 50% of the pressing. That seems like a lot to me but as this is my first go round I'm not sure whether I'm getting a better or worse deal than just an upfront licensing fee. I'm not sure that the demand is there to do a massive pressing of the two albums I'm looking at and was just planning on an initial run of 500 or less for each. I was looking to just do this as a hobby on the side and charge cost for the records, not taking my time into account. If I give them 50% of the pressing obviously it will instantly double the price I need to charge for each individual record and then I'm worried that they can price cheaper and with the limited demand would possibly make it impossible for me to break even in selling my copies. Thoughts, advice, suggestions? Well 50% does seem high. I don't know how'd you make your money back that way, especially with a small run of 500 or less. Not to knock your effort, but having a label as a "hobby" and expecting to break even on your releases isn't going to work out well. Selling just 250 records is hard work. You have to put tons of time/effort into promoting the release, if people don't know it's available they can't buy it, plus you have to build up your labels cred so that people feel safe order from you. And if your band is an unknown, you also have to build up their following and make sure that they're steady touring/promoting themselves in order to gain attention and in return have the ability to sell more albums. Also doing a small run is silly sometimes because often the difference in price for a press of 300 to 500 is only a few hundred dollars and the potential profits goes way up because you have almost double the records to sell. I'm not sure why you'd consider licensing material and then only press a few hundred records. It seems like a waste of money. I would assume if you're putting out money to release licensed material on vinyl that you'd choose one with the ability to sell at least 500. I don't know, maybe try and have your first release be from a band that just released an album or will be soon and get that pressed. This way you don't have to deal with licensing fees. I didn't mean to sound discouraging, but moving records is not easy and requires a lot of effort. It may seem like a casual hobby, but if your aim is to break even, it'll be really hard if you take a backseat approach. I'm just saying because it is an investment that'll cost you ~$2,000 and that's not a fun amount of money to lose. tofucarnage and larry47591 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zacooper Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 Well 50% does seem high. I don't know how'd you make your money back that way, especially with a small run of 500 or less. Not to knock your effort, but having a label as a "hobby" and expecting to break even on your releases isn't going to work out well. Selling just 250 records is hard work. You have to put tons of time/effort into promoting the release, if people don't know it's available they can't buy it, plus you have to build up your labels cred so that people feel safe order from you. And if your band is an unknown, you also have to build up their following and make sure that they're steady touring/promoting themselves in order to gain attention and in return have the ability to sell more albums. Also doing a small run is silly sometimes because often the difference in price for a press of 300 to 500 is only a few hundred dollars and the potential profits goes way up because you have almost double the records to sell. I'm not sure why you'd consider licensing material and then only press a few hundred records. It seems like a waste of money. I would assume if you're putting out money to release licensed material on vinyl that you'd choose one with the ability to sell at least 500. I don't know, maybe try and have your first release be from a band that just released an album or will be soon and get that pressed. This way you don't have to deal with licensing fees. I didn't mean to sound discouraging, but moving records is not easy and requires a lot of effort. It may seem like a casual hobby, but if your aim is to break even, it'll be really hard if you take a backseat approach. I'm just saying because it is an investment that'll cost you ~$2,000 and that's not a fun amount of money to lose. Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. I'm definitely not going to be taking a "backseat" approach but it definitely will not 100% of my time since I work full time right now for a large corporation. I'm not too concerned about losing some money on my first release but 50% of the pressing just seemed crazy to me. I'm still running the numbers on it and will evaluate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emo Revival Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 Hey Justin, I found a more comprehensive list of pressing plants in case you were interested http://monoequipped.wordpress.com/vinyl-pressing-plants/ xjustinxschwierx and konk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shamrocks Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 so im in a similar position as zacooper, trying to get rights to release something on vinyl, planning on a run of 500. my question is this: since the original release was essentially self-relased on CD, if im going to offer to the rights holder (the artist) to press this and fund it 100%, whats a reasonable royalty to offer? he may prefer cash over getting part of the pressing, but i think that would be negotiable. i figured getting 500 pressed would cost me between 2500 and 4000 depending on how creative we wanted to be with the jacket, etc. can you just write up simple contracts for things like this? im sure there are horror stories from the more experienced of you about how things went sour...any major pitfalls to watch out for when dealing with an artist directly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry47591 Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 so im in a similar position as zacooper, trying to get rights to release something on vinyl, planning on a run of 500. my question is this: since the original release was essentially self-relased on CD, if im going to offer to the rights holder (the artist) to press this and fund it 100%, whats a reasonable royalty to offer? he may prefer cash over getting part of the pressing, but i think that would be negotiable. i figured getting 500 pressed would cost me between 2500 and 4000 depending on how creative we wanted to be with the jacket, etc. can you just write up simple contracts for things like this? im sure there are horror stories from the more experienced of you about how things went sour...any major pitfalls to watch out for when dealing with an artist directly? Is the artist still active? Most of my releases with the exception of 2 have been dealing with the artist directly. I had a lawyer draft me a template that we use for all of our releases. The way I have done it is the artist gets a precent of the profits. Which in my case the artist gets a bigger precent of the profits. Could be 40/60 or 30/70 whatever you agree on. Of course profits are only factored after breaking even. Although If the band is active I give them usually 100 for shows which just comes out of their profits. Not really any rules to this just what you guys agree upon. I want the bands I work with to start making money out the gate and if you sell all 500 it works out in the end anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shamrocks Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 thanks thats helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milesw Posted July 26, 2013 Share Posted July 26, 2013 Hi guys, MRS offers help to musicians with album production and distribution. More info HERE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyNewton Posted August 14, 2013 Share Posted August 14, 2013 I haven't gone through this thread, but I thought this was the best place to ask. Somewhat interested in start a distro and was wondering if I could get some advice about it, tips, how it's done, factors, and everything else involved. waytansea27 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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