Custom Critique Price Increase

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jay10music
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Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by jay10music » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:33 pm

Dear Passengers,During a recent staff meeting I was alerted to the fact that since we began offering Custom Critiques through our online submission thingy, the number of Customs has gone through the roof. We used to get a relative trickle, and now it's a flood!The problem is that we don't put a time limit on how long a screener spends on each Custom (quality over quanity). I asked my A&R people to do a study to find out how long the average Custom was taking, and lo and behold, the time spent per Custom averaged about 40 minutes each! Yikes!!!!We are paying the screeners $30/hr to do their work. At 40 minutes each (on avg.), we were spending $20 per Custom, but only bringing in $10 each in fees. When I did the big picture math, it instantly became apparent to me that we were losing hundreds of dollars per week, and were on track to lose about $25,000 per year doing the Customs at the old rate of $10 each.I've never treated the critiques in general as much of a profit center. As a matter of fact, we have historically made a small profit or a small loss on the submission fees VS. the screener fees over the years. That's okay if it's a wash, but a $25,000 annual loss based on just the Customs told me it was time to increase the fee on the Customs in order to break even on those, so we have.For the first time in recorded history, our programmers changed the fee on the site before I could give you a head's up. Obviously, when you made a Custom submission on our site recently, the new rate was published, so you could make the decision to submit or not, but this is one time when I wished the programmers moved more slowly than I do ;-)For what it's worth, several of the screeners who are doing your Customs are some of the best song coaches in the business, and they typically charge around $100/hr. for their services, so you're still getting quite a deal Thanks in advance for your understanding,Michael

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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by johnnydean1 » Sat Jul 28, 2007 4:20 am

Michael,would you consider my proposal on another thread which is,$10 for a ten minute critique,$20 for a twenty minute critique.I have lots of song ideas so a ten minute (or much shorter) could tell me if I'm wasting my time,then while working on the good stuff a more detailed critique would be very useful.IMO if your Screeners are spending forty minutes on a Critique then they should be asking for a co-write!!

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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by Casey H » Sat Jul 28, 2007 5:08 am

Quote:Michael,would you consider my proposal on another thread which is,$10 for a ten minute critique,$20 for a twenty minute critique.I have lots of song ideas so a ten minute (or much shorter) could tell me if I'm wasting my time,then while working on the good stuff a more detailed critique would be very useful.IMO if your Screeners are spending forty minutes on a Critique then they should be asking for a co-write!! Hey JDYou might want to drop M.L. an email directly. He might read your suggestion faster.Welcome back. Casey

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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by johnnydean1 » Sat Jul 28, 2007 7:26 am

Quote:Quote:Michael,would you consider my proposal on another thread which is,$10 for a ten minute critique,$20 for a twenty minute critique.I have lots of song ideas so a ten minute (or much shorter) could tell me if I'm wasting my time,then while working on the good stuff a more detailed critique would be very useful.IMO if your Screeners are spending forty minutes on a Critique then they should be asking for a co-write!! Hey JDYou might want to drop M.L. an email directly. He might read your suggestion faster.Welcome back. CaseyThanks Casey.I will do that.Good to see you.

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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by zircon » Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:16 am

Can anyone attest to the quality of the custom critiques over normal critiques? As I have expressed previously, I have yet to receive a truly helpful and/or insightful critique from any submission I have made to TAXI. So far whenever the screeners have tried to give me actual specific advice they end up being confusing and nonsensical (like "add more drums to fatten up the bass" or something like that). If a custom critique is much better, it's a service I would use.

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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by horacejesse » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:56 pm

Quote:Can anyone attest to the quality of the custom critiques over normal critiques?I can, and I am going to do that in my next Taxi Land installment.

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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by hummingbird » Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:38 am

I do find the custom critiques to be very thorough. I think $20 is pretty reasonable, given the time involved. When I review songs posted on song boards it often takes me 30 minutes or more, so I appreciate the time that is put into studying lyrics & listening as well as writing recommendations.H
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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by songrider » Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:36 pm

I can talk faster than I type (and I'm not a bad typist - thank God for spell check, however) I imagine most people can too—eve those who critique. So, being that this is is an "Audio Medium" we are involved in why can there be two rates. One for those who either want a type written critique and/or don't have the ability to listen to audio on line AND a less expensive rate for those who are willing to have an audio critique. Considering the spoken word does not require the "high fidelity" of singing and music, a narrative critique would not only be faster for the "critiquer" it could be recorded and downloaded quickly because a lower bit rate would work fine. Besides, the inflection of spoken words would go a lot further to communicate the ideas and thoughts of the critiquer (is that a real word - "cratiquer"?) AND FOR THOSE PERFORMING CRITIQUES FOR TAXI THAT FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES AFTER TRASHING SO MANY SENSITIVE SONG WRITERS, THEY COULD USE ONE OF THOSE ELECTRONIC DEVICES THAT BAD GUYS USE IN THE MOVIES TO ALTER THEIR VOICE. THEY WOULD REMAIN "ANONYMOUS" FOREVER! AND FURTHERMORE.... My recent $20 custom critique had considerably less to it than what I would get back submitting a song to a listing that also offered a critique, for $5. Ooops! I'm whining.

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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by hummingbird » Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:18 pm

Quote:I can talk faster than I type (and I'm not a bad typist - thank God for spell check, however) I imagine most people can too—eve those who critique. So, being that this is is an "Audio Medium" we are involved in why can there be two rates. One for those who either want a type written critique and/or don't have the ability to listen to audio on line AND a less expensive rate for those who are willing to have an audio critique. Considering the spoken word does not require the "high fidelity" of singing and music, a narrative critique would not only be faster for the "critiquer" it could be recorded and downloaded quickly because a lower bit rate would work fine. Besides, the inflection of spoken words would go a lot further to communicate the ideas and thoughts of the critiquer (is that a real word - "cratiquer"?) AND FOR THOSE PERFORMING CRITIQUES FOR TAXI THAT FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES AFTER TRASHING SO MANY SENSITIVE SONG WRITERS, THEY COULD USE ONE OF THOSE ELECTRONIC DEVICES THAT BAD GUYS USE IN THE MOVIES TO ALTER THEIR VOICE. THEY WOULD REMAIN "ANONYMOUS" FOREVER! AND FURTHERMORE.... My recent $20 custom critique had considerably less to it than what I would get back submitting a song to a listing that also offered a critique, for $5. Ooops! I'm whining.That that would mean recording critiques in a room where others are trying to seriously listen to music, and providing microphones & recording equipment (and voice changing filters), and gathering & storing MP3s. One can correct, and read over he/her written feedback, but in recording it one is off the cuff and may or may not cover all the points he/she wished to make. (And it would be difficult to cut and paste feedback from your critique to the Taxi board )I do prefer written critiques as I can file them in my song file and refer to them at leisure.
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Re: Custom Critique Price Increase

Post by squidlips » Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:46 pm

You file them? You're gooooooood!! I shove mine in a Word document and then forget where I saved them.

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