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Getting the Pro's on Your Side
Part 1 - Singers & Demo Tapes - Who Needs One and Why?
First of all, you HAVE to have a demo tape to get anywhere in the music business. Think of it as a singing business card. But,
here's the catch…if it's a bad singing business card, it won't "help" you. Good singing cards cost money. Now, you don't have
to "gold plate" it. But it has to be of sufficient quality to say "I'm a Pro" or at least "I'm Ready for the Pro's." Because there are
100 demo tapes just underneath yours that are "pro quality."
I repeat…regardless of the situation you are headed for, you have to have a GREAT demo tape. This is really a pre-audition.
The person listening to your tape is trying to decide if he/she wants to spend any more of their time and money working with
you. You will find that a great demo can open a lot of doors and can lead to a ton of opportunity. But a sloppy one will ensure
that you never get a chance to be heard. Why would someone else want to spend his or her valuable time and hard-earned
money on an artist that hasn't taken the time to put together a measly demo. It's critical that you convey the fact that you take
this aspect of your life VERY seriously. Because of this it's critical to put your best foot forward.
Now, at this point, you have a couple of options. First, you can record a Karaoke Demo. You can do this for a few hundred
bucks and have a 3-5 song demo very quickly (For more info on this process see my article entitled "JUST GETTING STARTED
SINGING." In the industry, this is called "covering" an artist. But there are some drawbacks to this choice: 1) While these sort of
tapes are fairly cheap to buy, most are equally cheap sounding as well. Be very careful about what you decide to invest in at
this stage, you can waste a lot of money on terrible sounding backing tracks. 2) As soon as the listener hears the first note of
the song (most of this time this is even before you sing your first line) they have an impression of how you "should" sound. If
you're doing a Christina Aguilera song, they want you to sound like Christina sounds… If you're doing the Back Street Boys,
they'll want you to sound like them. This sort of immediate comparisons are impossible to escape with "covers."
The second option is to create your own sound. There are a few choices within this category as well. The first is to hire out your
own studio and record "original material." Again you can do "covers" which will sped up the process, but unless you significantly
modify the existing arrangements, you will end up with the same immediate comparison problem I have already discussed. Or
you can do original material.
You will have to gather your own material by either writing it yourself or finding writers that will contribute to your cause. This
could be very time consuming, so start cultivating these relationships early!
Either way, you can expect to spend a minimum of $300-$400 per song (12 hours of studio time) and could take from 4-5 weeks
to 4-5 months per song depending on your situation. That means that a 3-5 song demo tape of this sort can cost upwards of
$1500 and take an entire year to finish!
This is where Must Have Music can help. We provide pro quality songs (chord charts) virtually free of charge…How can you get
less expensive than that!. This alone could take years of studying and hard work to attain on your own. Many of the world's
top-notch singers turn to professional songwriters for exactly this service.
However, this option requires that you have the time money and talent to produce your own demo tape. At the very least that
you have established a good relationship that will help you achieve that goal. But more than that, if you like, for $200-$400 we'll
provide a background track that will significantly trim down the cost, while eliminating the guess work and time required for you to
have a PRO sounding demo tape! At Must Have Music, we routinely spend as much as $1000 on a single song production.
Something most beginning singers would rarely be able to do. And these songs are not covers, they're are original songs, ,
provided by veteran songwriters.
When you look at things from this perspective, whether you decide to license our song(s) and use the chord chart or decide to
use our entire background tracks this service should be considered an unparalleled bargain!
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