Burnlounge deemed a Ponzi scheme

[chris harris]

you're talking about starting a small label. I don't see anything new about this idea.
and, you still haven't been really clear about why you want to "own" the masters.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

What I am proposing here is a business we could all start out of our own studios.

yeah that part is cool. it's the owning the masters bit that i can't get past. if the recording's paid for, then whoever paid for it owns it. anything other than that just seems overly complicated and/or totally shady to me.

i'm not trying to jump on your idea here...really i'm not....but, ignoring the 'owning the masters' issue for a sec, have you really thought about the finances? how much are you gonna charge the students/bands per day/per record? you mentioned 6 grand, 4 students, and a months time...are you thinking each student would pony up $1500 as the 'class fee'?

i think if you could get people to pay that, then great. but why not just leave it at that and leave the whole label end out of it?

you make a bunch of money from the students
the students get to work and learn in a real studio
the band gets a hopefully good recording for free

everyone wins, there's nothing shady going on, and you don't have to worry about laying out any money for mastering, replication etc. just seems so much simpler IMO.

[Johnny B]

What's missing from this discussion is that I believe some schools do this as well. Not the label, but they own the masters for anything recorded there. This wasn't the case where I went to school but I have heard of it. For the record, we had to agree to credit the music school studio and the studio director on anything that was released - fair enough, though. The comm school didn't seem to have a policy at all.

There are probably people who would be interested in this, both potential "students" and bands. And then there are people like me who aren't interested in anyone else owning the masters of recordings of my music. But, and this is a big but, just because some people aren't interested doesn't mean that it's an idea that's without merit. Or that it's unethical. As long as the students get what they're paying for (some hands-on training ostensibly), the bands are compensated if the thing actually sells and everyone participating agrees to the details and can reach an agreement, I can see how this might be a workable idea.

As long as the students are getting actual worthwhile training, then it seems fair to them that they don't own the masters, as they are paying for the training. In general, if the band didn't pay for the recording, the label owns it. The catch is usually the label paid for it. This seems to be the sticking point for many posters. I don't think this is inherently unfair, although some risk to the label/studio seems more in order here. Maybe the students pay for the studio time, the band doesn't pay to record, but gets royalties if the thing sells and the studio pays for the mastering and replication.

My reasoning for the last bit is that bit of risk for the studio/label will give them reason to actually promote the thing and try to sell it. Otherwise if the studio has a bunch of CDs that someone else paid for, what incentive do they have to sell them, really? Yes, they'll make money, but preventing a loss is probably a better incentive. The other reason is that of quality control. If the studio/label has the potential to lose money, they'll be more likely to pick better artists that stand a chance of making the money back.

[JGriffin]

What I am proposing here is a business we could all start out of our own studios.

The thing I'm seeing as a potential problem is fairly significant: you now have to promote an entire "label" worth of releases on top of running a studio business. You're doing this already, I get that, but lots of us don't have the time to promote a dozen new releases or money to press them all up and buy ad space, bribe program directors for airtime etc. So it's not a business we can all start out of our studios, not without some serious capital behind it.

Easy to be critical, but harder to have ideas. What other ideas do you guys have?

Your original post said "why not..." do this idea, not "what can studio owners do to bring in more money." You want other ideas, that's a different thread.

[syrupcore]

Shady owning the master thing aside, it almost seems like an interesting idea.

If nothing else, it's getting other people to resell your services - nothing new or wrong about that. what feels weird is that the 'cut' resellers normally get is in this case the privilege of watching you work and pointing a few mics. That's normally called an internship and it shouldn't cost the intern a thing. Where it might be worth it is if the reseller wasn't an intern but was instead a student - different from an intern. In order for some one to be a "student" the engineer needs to be a "teacher". Just because some one can mix a record doesn't mean they can teach some one else to do it.

Jeff, you started the thread so I'll use you as an example but the same would apply to most of us: You might have skills in a studio but you're not Jeremy. You know what I mean?

So then, if the point is to have the studio filled more often and we're willing to realize our lack of skill in the teaching department, maybe the whole idea can be dumbed down to good effect. Offer the studio to reseller/interns at reduced rates perhaps? I mean, if your rate is normally 50 but you're willing to go to 35, why not just have an army of resellers out there drumming up business for you at 35 or 40 per hour? You get the studio filled, you get some one to point microphones and wind cables so the cut in rate is palatable, the intern gets to learn some stuff and the band gets recorded.

At the reduced rate, if the intern really wants to pay to play, they have the option of selling the studio time at whatever rate they want to as long as your minimum is being met.

[wayne kerr]

What, no one's made a $35 joke yet?

cos he raised his rates awhile back.

This is no joke.

[@?,*???&?]

Jeff, you started the thread so I'll use you as an example but the same would apply to most of us: You might have skills in a studio but you're not Jeremy. You know what I mean?

I am an adjunct faculty member at two local colleges here in Detroit and have been for 4 years and have been averaging teaching 8 to 12 credits per semester since then and I do have a bachelors degree. So yeah, I am sort of like Jeremy, but likely most of you could not move easily in to the teaching domain. I am constantly trying to assess how to get the students more hands-on and get them involved more with learning the process of recording. Ideally, doing this kind of thing with a local college might be the best opportunity, but the colleges typically want to keep this kind of thing entirely in-house, with or without the inherent flaws.

btw, seeing the increasing and steady enrollment and seeing how much the colleges spend toward growing these programs has awakened a level of realization of the level of interest in learning this stuff.

One more thing to mention that is good about the sequence of instruction of the college courses is that the first basic class weeds out those who aren't serious about wanting to become a recording engineer and those who fail (@30%) do not move on. It almost guarantees good minds for the programs. If these people came to the studio instead of college, there were be a very disparate level of talent and competency. Obviously, a studio would not have the ability to screen based upon academic prowess.

[syrupcore]

oh. well then.

[Cyan421]

Its a bad idea.

If the students were really smart they wouldnt waste time and money on recording 'school'. What you should tell the 'students', who are merely getting an EXPERIENCE and not an EDUCATION, is that they won't find jobs recording music. They should have realised that when so many 'recording engineers' are acctually TEACHERS. At the trade schools they are just training people to come back and teach to take more money from more students who can't get jobs recording music becasue those jobs don't exist.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

If the students were really smart they wouldnt waste time and money on recording 'school'.

yeah i was going to say that spending money on 'recording school' has never seemed that smart to me. spend the money on some rudimentary gear and get to work. record your own stuff, make loads of mistakes and learn from them. befriend bands and record them. if said bands are actually going to a Real Professional Studio, offer your services for free as drum tech or roadie or recording session whipping boy, whatever, just get yourself in there so you can watch pros work. once there, shut up and learn.

repeat.

congratulations, you're an engineer.

[@?,*???&?]

I certainly didn't go to a recording school and I couldn't agree more with the last few statements above.

Simply stated, "Get some equipment and start recording" is the best way to become a recording engineer. Over time, you will become a decent recording engineer and over even more time you'll become a good recording engineer.

Here is what the studio/school could offer though to any young student- an album credit or two. The surefire thing of working with a label or a studio that can put out recordings ensures a guaranteed credit for the student for that all-important discography.

I encourage my students to work toward working on albums that will be released as that will help to start to accrue the necessary credits to get future jobs doing this. Recording schools give no such opportunities.

[syrupcore]

If some one has 10k to spend on 'becoming an engineer' there's no doubt buying some gear and just recording is the way to go. After that 10k and some experience I wonder if the next 5k would be better spent on nice mic pres or on 2 months at a great studio shadowing great engineers. I think my recordings would benefit more from the latter.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

I think my recordings would benefit more from the latter.

and they likely would. my point was just that you can get yourself into real studios without spending money if you offer to help out the bands in whatever way. hell, if you can play you can do the occasional session, and then you get to hang out in a real studio AND get paid. what a novelty.