Record Labels and Music ProductionBy Gemma Freaney

1). Describe a typical music recording session in a professional recording studio and who are the people involved?Music recording sessions are often perceived as glamorous, but they actually involve considerable work and planning. Those involved must find the right recording studio, set a budget and a schedule, and find the right personnel, including engineers, producers and specialized musicians, to get the sound they want. Some examples of equipment needed will include; microphones, mixing boards, effects boxes, faders, miscellaneous music supplies. The people involved could vary as to how much one person could do. There will always be a producer and a singer. Additionally, there may be musicians, sound engineers, songwriters.

2). What is the A&R Department at a record label and what are their responsibilities? In the music business, A&R stands for artist and repertoire. They would match up recording artists with songwriters, picking songs that would suit the artists and picking artists that would score hits for a songwriter. Over the years their role has changed, and while they may still suggest songwriters and producers for artists to work with their main job in acting as the point of contact between the artist, and their management, and the rest of the label infrastructure. There are three levels of the A&R department; At the lowest level are the A&R scouts. They listen to demos, go to shows and find new artists from their contacts and the press. If the scout finds a band that fits the labels roster, he'll pass them to an A&R Manager. They will make the decision on whether to sign an artist and negotiate the deal. It's the manager’s job to get the rest of the department at the label interested in the artist, presenting them to the PR and promotions people. The Head of A&R will set the overall policy for the label and may take part in decisions about high profile or new artists.

3). In note form, detail how a deal between a record label and artist used to work.

● Record company would pay the artist a sum of money as an ‘advance’, for them to record their material, and specify how much that artist would have to sell before the advance can be paid off.

● The artist would then get a cut of the profit (usually around 15%)● The label would get the CD’s manufactured and then distribute this into record shops through

their marketing network. Whilst working on getting promotion via Radio, TV, magazines and so on.

● In the meantime, the label would be arranging tours, with all the accompanying merchandising, as another revenue stream.

● The publishing end of the label (or and independent publisher) would then collect royalties from all the airplay and other usage of the artist’s materials, taking a cut themselves.

Although, in the modern digital world, much of this can actually be done on a smaller scale and we may even be able to circumvent the record companies entirely.

4). Can you think of any corporations who might operate or operated like the “large corporation” mentioned above? Name one and the type of structure that enables the corporation to provide these facilities.

These corporations could be any of the ‘Big Three’ (Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music Group) but in the terms of Sony Music; their structure involves something called Vertical Integration. This is where an organisation has a stake in production, distribution and exhibition. In Sony’s case, ‘ROC NATION’ cover their production side, ‘Epic’ then cover the distribution, and ‘Music Unlimited’ then cover the consumption.

5). In the “Secrets of the Song” programme, various pieces of technology were mentioned or used, what were they?● Sound demo’s (to get an idea of what sort of sound they were looking for)● The voice recorder that the girl was using (to see which type of melodies

would go with that part of the song)● Computers and software (to record the sounds from the instruments and

put them all together).

6). How did The Gorillaz record the album “The Fall”?The entire album was recorded on group co-founder Damon Albarn's iPad during the American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour in October 2010 and mixed in England by Stephen Sedgwick. Damon Albarn explained this by saying; "I literally made it on the road. I didn't write it before, I didn't prepare it. I just did it day by day as a kind of diary of my experience in America. If I left it until the New Year to release it then the cynics out there would say, 'Oh well, it's been tampered with', but if I put it out now they'd know that I haven't done anything because I've been on tour ever since." It was recorded in October and then released in December. They also released what apps they used to do all of this; Speak It! Text to Speech / SoundyThingie / Mugician / Sylo Synthesiser, Sylo Synthesiser Pro / Synth / FunkBox Drum Machine / gliss / AmpliTube for iPad / XENON Groove Synthesizer / KORG iELECTRIBE / bs-16i / Mellotronics M3000 for iPad / Cleartune – Chromatic Tuner / iORGEL HD / olsynth / StudioMini XL Recording Studio / Bassline / Harmonizer / Dub Siren Pro / Moog Filtatron.

7). Describe what is a 360 degree contract and why it came about?In the music industry, a 360 deal is a business relationship between an artist and a music industry company. The company agrees to provide financial and other support for the artist, including direct advances as well as support in marketing, promotion, touring and other areas. In turn, the artist agrees to give the company a percentage of an increased number of their revenue streams, often including sales of recorded music, live performances, publishing and more. This business arrangement is an alternative to the traditional recording contract. In a 360 deal, a company typically provides support to an artist in more areas than covered by a traditional recording contract on the condition of receiving a percentage of revenue from these additional areas. During the first decade of the 21st century, revenues from recorded music fell dramatically and the profit margins traditionally associated with the record industry disappeared. The 360 deal reflects the fact that much of a musician's income now comes from sources other than recorded music, such as live performance and merchandise. 360 deals have been made by traditional record companies, as in Robbie Williams's pioneering deal with EMI in 2002. They have also been made between artists and promoters, as with Live Nation's 2007 deal with Madonna and 2008 deal with Jay-Z.