excellent sounding home recordings are fine?

[TomA]

This started out short and sorry it just kind of got bigger!
I am determined to get to grips with these listings but so far I'm beginning to think I've lost the ability to understand English. I'm not on this full time like maybe some members, so time is limited, but the fact the listings suggest home recordings are ok is the main reason for pitching in the Taxi game.
Why therefore do we get critiques stating that it’s just 'not good enough for this high bar listing'? when the listings states: (excellent sounding home recordings are fine)(home recordings MUST be excellent!) (great home recordings are fine)[excellent home recordings are OK](excellent home recordings will work, too)
If the quality of submission from Taxi members is that 'high', and I would say I have heard some top notch stuff, then I do think Taxi should be dropping the (excellent home recordings) on almost every single listing and state categorically top pro studio production required, when required. Ok solo guitar/piano ect is a lot easier to hit ‘high bar’ but if it’s to be ‘high bar’ then drop the home recording bit.
As musicians we are all open to each other’s points of view but to nitpick at some elements in a listing stating excellent sounding home recordings are fine does make me wonder about who is really writing these critiques. My gripe here is suggesting an excellent real live breathing drummer with a track record this side of the pond is ‘mechanical and the feel, especially drums, could sound more human and idiomatic. The cymbal crashes in particular could use greater variety and expression.’
Also ‘I advise developing a clearer overall sound.’ cleaner sound...what does that mean? Listen to Please Love Me (BB King) rough old sound nothing clean about that track! In BB’s Recession Blues the drummer doesn’t hit a crash or variety of cymbals at any point in the whole track. Where’s the drum/ cymbal variation in Tickle Britches? Listen to a BB King compilation the production/mix varies enormously track to track and overall I would say the drums sit back in the mix.
The point here is the critique suggests a number of points that just don’t add up when you consider the genre and massive available material that easily contradicts the critique.
If your gonna have an opinion, make it educated!
Any other members feel Taxi should be dropping the excellent home recordings? It’s there in almost every single listing.

http://www.taxi.com/tomanderson
Under Your Thumb

[shoodBworkin]

re "I do think Taxi should be dropping the (excellent home recordings) on almost every single listing and state categorically top pro studio production required, when required."

Yep. I agree. I've also been told in this forum that "Your song, although it might be excellent.... if the production is not up to par, will get turned down in favor of a nicely produced "good" song."

. . . which pretty much means the stuff intended for use on tv needs top studio production more than it needs to be excellent

[mazz]

Hey guys, sounds like sour grapes to me!!

Consider this: I would imagine that the BB King recordings you are referring to were recorded several decades ago in fairly primitive studios. The average guy with a laptop and some outboard gear has better gear for the most part than what they had back then. Of course, there are some exceptions, but recording technology has advanced leaps and bounds since then and the bar has been continually raised, and continues to be raised. That doesn't discount the great music that was captured in a substandard fashion compared to today's aesthetics, and people obviously still love and listen to that music to this day.

But that doesn't really apply to the reality of the musician/composer/producer of today. Unless you can afford to hire out a studio to do your productions, you have to learn to do it yourself. There are several folks on this board: Big Blue Barry, Keith LuBrant are two main ones in the rock genre that spring to mind immediately, that can produce recordings in their bedroom studios that sound nearly as good as some commercial recordings. These folks, and others like them, have honed their chops not just on their instruments and their writing, but on their recordings as well. The hours upon hours they have spent working on improving their recording skills are starting to pay off with deals and placements on TV and Film. They happen to be very talented guys, but they also know that talent alone wouldn't get them to where they want to be, so they worked hard on all aspects of their music (and still are!!).

The fact of the matter is: the quality of "excellent sounding home recordings" keeps going up every year, and there are more and more people figuring out how to do it. The clients know this, and hear this, so they won't take anything that is less than up to the par that they are hearing. So Taxi isn't driving this, their publishing/library/producer/label clients are. The end users of our music have every right to demand very high quality because they are getting it elsewhere. It makes no sense for Taxi to lower their bar because their high end clients would just stop using them, thus reducing the amount of opportunities for all of us Taxi members. A business model of "let's only supply mediocre and substandard sounding music to the industry" seems like a recipe for failure.

So bite the bullet and learn how to do it, or collaborate with someone that has those skills, or hire professionals. No matter what you choose, the bar is what it is. No amount of complaining is going to change it.

Good luck,

Mazz

[TomA]

Mazz, I want to make it clear I’m not coming at this from sour grapes, I can take criticism. I’ve had the experience of forwards and returns. Some critiques have been excellent. But let me quote Michael in a taxi tv interview with Rob Chiarelli.
Michael, ‘I would say 70-80% of the stuff that doesn’t get forwarded is because they pitched it incorrectly.’ He goes on to say, They ignore everything else in the listing and send in something that has a tiny reference to a guitar sound and expect it to be forwarded.’
I would say in that case any company experiencing 70-80% errors would consider changing the approach. If 70-80% of your sales pitches were failing you would consider re training your sales force. What are Taxi doing in a proactive way to improve on this? 70-80%! Is this all down to taxi members getting it wrong or is there maybe some room for improvement in the descriptions Taxi lists?
The listing style hasn’t, from memory, changed in years. Michael talks about the competition, well surely to stay ahead you need to evolve and improve? Would you not want to improve on a 70-80% failure rate?
Rob went on to say ‘If you focus on one thing for too long you lose the bigger picture.’ ‘Tracks, they have a vibe, nothing is perfect.’
I’m talking about a drummer with 30 years experience in the business and the critique is suggesting the cymbals could have more variation. My point is where did that view come from?
Mazz are you saying you feel that is constructive criticism when the opinion has no real substance when analysing most blues genres irrespective of what decade they were written? And I reiterate Rob Chiarelli’s point nothing is perfect.
My point on production is there is a very wide spectrum of production in the blues genre, if they wanted ‘clean’ why not say make it clean? And what does authentic mean? Most of the listings I’ve pitched for have been some what vague.
Mazz, did you listen to my submission? Would you say it is poor for a home recording? If this is a poor home recording I should give up. All real musicians no EZ drummer, no midi and absolutely no auto tune on the blues!
Taxi member Hookjaw Brown commented
‘GadZooks..Great Production, cool vibe on the vocals....love the mid song change up with some great guitar lines. Release that sucker on CD Baby!
But...It ain't Memphis or Chi-town. It is West Coast all the way.’Really cool!
Now the difference is he goes on to justify his opinion with reference material and you get a good idea of where he is coming from and why he thinks its west coast as to Memphis. Much the same way any academic cites reference material. Where does cymbal variation come into the overall picture? Would Rob Chiarelli turn down a track because of a lack of cymbal variation?
Back to the point, Michael said 70-80% are getting the pitch wrong yet the descriptions and content of the listings has never really changed and continue to be vague for some listings.
This is not about sour grapes it’s about a higher proportion of taxi members understanding the listings. If they want the highest of bar then I think they should say so and drop the home recordings. But let me finish with one of your points on home production. Let’s see home recording changed to home recordings close to pro studio standard.......and we mean pro studio standard.
Mazz no sour grapes just hope to speak out for the 70-80% returns and ask the question why.

[mazz]

Your track sounds fine. It sounds like a high quality demo to my ears, the overall EQ has a bit of a "smile curve" sound to me and could use more punch in the midrange and the vocal. The playing and writing are good, certainly sounds like all real players. The feel change in the middle is cool but may limit the usage for film and TV, I'm not sure what listing you were submitting to.

My experience with Taxi listings compared to briefs that have come from library clients, including custom work, is that the Taxi listings tend to be clearer than the others. Often they'll just send examples of what the client likes with the words "write more like this but don't rip it off" and nothing more.

I agree with your quote from Chiarelli because I've done it myself: "Oh this piece has one of the elements of (pick a genre) so maybe they'll hear past the rest of the stuff that has nothing to do with the listing". People do send in stuff that really doesn't fit the listings, I heard a bunch of it myself when I visited Taxi last year for a Taxi TV show.

This whole thing comes up all the time regarding listing wording and the only thing I can say about this is that some folks manage to crack the code and get forwards, deals and placements from Taxi listings, so if they were that vague, no one would be getting through.

It may be possible that you are just focusing on the wrong things in the listings, or putting too much emphasis on things that won't get you the forward. I suggest that an approach that gives Taxi constructive feedback on how to improve listings and also some self reflection on how you could improve your pitching skills would yield better results than venting your frustration, no matter how good it might feel in the moment, on a public forum.

Since these discussions about someone's opinion of the listings (and I've participated in a lot of them over the past few years) usually start pretty much the same and go down the same path, I suggest that we stay on the high road.

Hang in there, I feel your pain!

Mazz

[fret17]

Hi TomA....I just got done listening to the four tracks you have up....I'm just starting to understand and am still far from broadcast quality with my limited gear...but I just wanted to say I really liked every song.....especially "All my Other Dreams"...I haven't heard anything that cool since...well...I can't remember...I love that song!...I like how it makes me feel!....Everything about it is really cool...the singing the playing the arrangement the words the music and yes..the production !...as is "Breadline" those harmonies are tight man!...I'm still trying to get that sound on my 24 track....I see nothing wrong with your music or it's production.....I would definately buy your music in a heartbeat!

[TomA]

Thanks for the kind words fret17 I will drop into the page and set them to download so you can have a copy on me.
Mazz, please understand this is not about my frustration and I feel no pain. I write for myself and if someone doesn’t like it....och well! I’ve had a decent music career playing at the likes of the Royal Albert Hall, London and David and Victoria Beckham’s party with Elton John as the support act no less! Seriously no frustration and no pain.
You say, This whole thing comes up all the time regarding listing wording and the only thing I can say about this is that some folks manage to crack the code and get forwards, deals and placements from Taxi listings, so if they were that vague, no one would be getting through.
Maybe I’m stupid to care but this sounds like the minority get it and the rest....rough luck!
And you do state ‘This thing comes up all the time...’ maybe there’s a reason for it coming up all the time.
Take this listing.
Major NY Ad Agency U-R-G-E-N-T-L-Y needs an UPTEMPO BLUES INSTRUMENTAL TRACK for a NATIONAL TV SPOT for a large, well-known restaurant chain.
Paul Otten ‘Bare Bones’ had a forward on this. Brilliant track! I hear London sound almost Rimmel add, ‘Get the London Look’ but as Rob would do fade out when the slide kicks in. What a great vibe, BUT not blues. You wouldn’t sit down and teach some guy blues guitar and say ‘Now here’s a cool blues riff!’ It’s a great track but not blues no way is that chord progression blues. They should have dropped the BLUES from the listing.
Now you may be experienced enough to get it but 70-80% are not.
Thanks for the comment on the ‘smiley EQ’.......now that’s constructive feedback! New set of monitors and I’ll take it onboard...............you should get a job for Taxi! 

[mazz]

Tom,

It sounds like you have a lot of live playing experience, that's great! Very cool venues too!

Unfortunately in this business, it is the minority that get through. For whatever reason, that's the way it seems to be.

I remember some discussion about that particular listing but I can't remember what was said so I won't go there.

In this crazy business, often the folks that write the requests have a certain sound in their mind or their memory but they don't have the language to articulate it because they aren't musicians. Someone could have told that person "this is blues", and that stuck in their head. Now a purist musician comes along and writes a real blues track and it gets rejected because it's not what the client thinks is blues. Fortunately for us, Taxi provides musical examples "a las", that we can refer to so we can say "Oh, I see, it's got a bluesy vibe and influence but it's not authentic blues like BB King". The message is "ignore the a las at your peril".

We can blame the clients for not knowing much about music, but do you really want a client telling you where to put a drum fill? We need to learn how to get inside a client's head, even from what we may think is a poorly written listing. Love them or hate them, they are the ones who hold the gigs in their hands. It's not an exact science!

Anyway, take care

Mazz

[Kelil]

I've had criticism like this before from taxi. But I went away and took their advice upon the song in question and I came back with leaps and bounds.

My advice is to drop home recordings altogether. Save up some dosh. Go in and invest some money and time in a good studio and then come back to see to see a good return on it. It's the only way. people when they see ''home recordings are ok'' seem to interpret that as ''Any aul demo recorded in your garage on garage band will do''. People with studios in their home need to be top enginneers and producers and most home recorders like that will have the best of gear available. So.....just go into a top notch studio and get it done that way. It's what I did. I would consider myself quite a lazy musician before I met taxi reps. But now they have really woken me up and it all paid off.

www.taxi.com/stephenmcelligott