Now we start here at the creative birth of the song ... which we have visualised as a foamy bubbly waterfall, churning away, all theses new songs, jewels and diamonds in the rough being produced, mastered and put out there as digital products. This RIVER splits into many different directions. You may try to make money from the sales of the song on iTunes and other digital music stores via an aggregation service like CD Baby, you may want your music to appear on streaming services like spotify, (but we would view that more as a marketing tool rather than a revenue generator... more on that later) and of course you will want your music to be hosted with as many non-exclusive licensing companies as possible (of which we are just one) because we will all be promoting your song to our entire client lists, with a view to getting it placed on campaigns, film trailers, TV shows, computer games, you name it... in order to make YOU money and have people hear YOUR work. So first stop along our particular river is.... A&R.
A & R stands for artist and repertoire, and in the old model of music company is the department of seasoned gig veterans, festival go-ers and more recently internet research gurus whose expertise lies in finding artists that they believe its worth their music company taking a risk on. We say "taking a risk" because the old model of the record label, in the days when recording and marketing was less scalable, more expensive and with a high cost barrier to entry, would involve advancing a huge sum of money to have the album recorded at the likes of abbey road studios, then an extensive advertising campaign involving posters of the artist or band, PR press releases to magazines even TV shows & commercials and music videos back in the day when anything half-decent had to be shot on 35mil film, all of which would cost the company time and money... so the "Contract" offered had to reflect a best estimate of what they would get back from the artist... also covering the costs of those albums that just didn't sell that well in spite of their best efforts. Nowerdays, major labels are looking for artists that already have a "platform" ... that means social media following, minimal album sales, record of having done smaller gigs and bonafide fan base... and of course any SYNC-PLACEMENTS they may have had, which is where we come in. For a record company or publisher to take a risk on you, they are always better assured if another business or brand has chosen to align with you, or if you've been featured on a film, tv programme already. Thats not them being lazy, thats just the reality today of so many people now being able to set up broacast quality studios in little more than a bedroom and produce premium quality music.... the proverbial bar has been raised. And in the same way, there are now many more companies offering similar services to us (none as equitable as us, but more on that later ;)
SO in order for you to have heard about US... you will have been REFERRED through by somebody recommending that you allow us to act on your behalf in the interests of SYNCH-PLACEMENT. That somebody will be one of our A&R partners, and may well be your manager, a friend, some random that threw a business card at you at a gig... regardless, they are someone that BELIVES in you and has invested time listening to you and inevitably other artists that didn't quite cut the mustard... and as such they earn a percentage for fulfilling that role in our music community.
Upon entry to our catalogue, we charge NOTHING. We ask for the rights we require to act on your behalf, trying to license your music under a percentage model (so you can be assured we are motivated to get the license fee the song is worth and no less;) The song will then enter the Echo Music Licensing Stream....
...Next Stop, CATALOGUE and REVIEW