TAXI.com

OK I have been debating on joing taxi for sometime and i'm read to take my music to the next level. My question is Taxi real or a joke how many have really made it? how many jobs, vs forwards and overall cost, how many are with taxi because it is worth it , or the only real option , or just dont no anything else . I know thngs take time but who has in 6 months or a year with the service is doing it big? I know thes question and comment are very open but just give me good feed back before i join the good, the bad and the ugly.......

Quote:OK I have been debating on joing taxi for sometime and i'm read to take my music to the next level. My question is Taxi real or a joke how many have really made it? how many jobs, vs forwards and overall cost, how many are with taxi because it is worth it , or the only real option , or just dont no anything else . I know thngs take time but who has in 6 months or a year with the service is doing it big? I know thes question and comment are very open but just give me good feed back before i join the good, the bad and the ugly.......Taxi is real, the listings are real, the deals you read about on the Taxi site are real. I personally have music placements on network and cable television through Taxi, although it took nearly three years (and a lot of hard work) for those kinds of things to develop.Having said that, here are some reasons (in my opinion) why some people don't do well with Taxi:1. They drop everything they've been doing and put all their eggs into one Taxi basket with the unrealistic expectation that they'll quickly get a deal because of Taxi's connections. 2. They're pre-convinced that their music is ready and then when their first couple of songs get returned they flip out (literally). 3. They're looking for short-term success in what is truly a long-term industry.The Taxi site says that approximately 11% of overall submissions get forwarded and that 6% of members get a deal. Ask yourself in the privacy of your own mind how you'll feel if your song winds up being one of the 89% of songs returned and if you wind up being one of 94% of members who don't get a deal. These odds through Taxi are actually much better than the "outside world" but they're still obviously hard numbers to swallow sometimes.Personally, I joined Taxi to get a realistic sense of how I compared on a national and international basis. My thinking at the time (in early 2004) was that if I could get to the point where I was forwarded on a fairly consistant basis then I could feel comfortable about submitting my music outside of Taxi. I used the critiques as a learning experience and I used the comments made by the screeners to improved my music. In general, if you can get past "Forward = screeners are great, return = screeners are idiots" then you've passed the major hurdle that keeps many people from being successful through Taxi. Dave

There's a big debate among songwriters as to whether Taxi is one of the vehicles you should use for marketing your music. I say, research Taxi as thoroughly as you would any opportunity. Sign up to get their listings (it's free) so you can see what kind of opportunities there might be for your broadcast quality music or potential hit songs. When you join Taxi don't forget you are joining a group of over 10,000 songwriters, many of whom are working professionally and have had music placed successfully through Taxi. They have their own production equipment (and know how to use it) or have paid for good demos, and they have honed their skills over many years. Any music you submit has to fall in the top few submissions in quality in order to be forwarded. They can get anywhere from 400 to 3,000 submissions for one listing. I've personally met screeners (they've got credits that blow my mind), and I've personally met & collaborated with Taxi members who are making a living writing music, placing music through Taxi. It's certainly not a joke for them. Taxi is not for everyone. If your music is good, you likely still won't get forwards. Only the most excellent, exceptional music gets forwarded. That's why the music industry uses Taxi - to screen out everything but the very very best commercially viable music that is exactly what the listee has requested. And you may think that isn't fair and isn't right, but that's what Taxi does. I told Michael Laskow that I thought it was great that he is open to having these kinds of discussions on this public board. Public debates on the merits of his business, for everyone to see. Hummin'bird

Hi dp,first off, people on this board are a fairly attentive bunch, so you don't have to post the same post 5 times...it's just going to annoy people... As far as whether Taxi is the real deal:I've been a member for 10 years now, so between yearly membership dues and submission fees, I've dropped a pretty penny on Taxi (you can do the math... ). But for me the return has been fantastic...I now make more money every 2 months as a result of Taxi deals than I've spent on Taxi in my entire 10 years.However...it took a while to get there...it took at least a year to my first deal, and then probably a couple more until I started to see more income than I was spending. After that, things really started to take off. And that is how it worked for just about anybody I know who has succeeded in the music business.So if you're REALLY ready to take your music to the next level, you would realize that you have to think like a business to do so.Every business requires investments, and initially you invest more than you make back. Taxi is an investment in your music business, in your music career. You have to have a realistic business plan if you want your business to suceed.I don't know of ANY business where you can "make it big" in six months to a year. Music is no different, if anything the music business moves more slowly than other businesses.So don't expect the impossible from Taxi. Cause even if you slept with every music biz exec you could find, or sent them hookers every week, you still wouldn't make it big in 6-12 months.

I don't know the answer to your question yet. My mind can still go either way. But, basically I have decided to proceed exactly as if it is legitimate in every sense. There is no chance to make it through TAXI if you decide the other way.How many have made it big? Probably not very many, yet that is the dream of at least 90% of those who join, I would guess.When you listen to Members' music on the links it is easy to find stuff you know full well is inferior to your own efforts. But what about that 1% which is awfully good and in a greater state of readiness than your own? That is the stuff you have to compete with, not the other 99%.Though TAXI claims in some of its promos that a simple home recording with voice and instrument is enough, I doubt that claim very much in 99.9999% of cases. The reason is obvious: too many screeners' comment deal with production issues for it to be an ancillary issue. You only have to read a few reviews to realize it is a big deal. But the reasons for this are obvious, too, if you think about them. Thousands of people with excellent recording setups right in their homes. Most of them send in excellent quality demos for review. If your tape is lousy quality with dogs barking in the background and the neighbors' kids yelling, it stands to reason that it may do poorly when surrounded by similar submissions which are excellent in quality. Excellence is quickly becoming the normal standard for production, it seems to me. This will become more so in the future, not less so.

I have no doubt Taxi is a great thing. The rally is amazing. Been four times now and each time I get what I need not what I want and it all makes great sense. I have been able to go farther with my musical dreams, hopes, etc since joining Taxi then ever before. I have found a amazing songwriter's willing to work with me. I'm a singer sometimes songwriter. Have a recording of a song written by a multi-award winning songwriter. Had my Producer come one year paid for him to join as a thank you gift he has a $20,000 deal now because of it which is just sharing a great thing to me. Have a great deeper more richer and fuller sense of the business I'm in music. Can't beginning to explain all the connections lining up for me and after working hard with my music this next year should be better then ever. If you work the site and the Taxi system when the time is right the right doors will open. Have patience, and faith in yourself and wonderful things will come out of being a member I'm more sure of that than ever before. This is not a company trying to rip you off for money. It is a company trying hard to bring musician's to the business end of the music world and they do it as well as anyone out there. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I will try to answer them because I believe in this Taxi and the ride is awesome more and more. The first year I was scared to death but now I know it is the right direction. Kyleellen@cox.net If you are looking to work with great Producers to record your music who are fair on what they charge and do for you as their clients I have a Father/Son team working with me the last two years. It's taken a long time because I'm a mother too and a soon to be author. The Father is in Nashville where he can record you with top players or the Son is in the L.A. area with top players too. Both very honest, repectful and talented musical spirited people too. Best Wishes to everyone, Ln (Ellen)

I am on my second year of TAXI. my stats for the first year are 65 submissions, 0 forwards, 8 custom critiques, and plenty of "hey bub wake up and smell the coffee.....music is a job that requires work". By that I mean I realized alot of things about my music, songwriting, and recording skills that needed attention from the feedback I got from screeners and critiques. It has not been an easy challenge to deal with. I find myself sometimes agonizing over recordings and mixdowns to reach a level of perfection..... that is push my system to (beyond) its limits to compete with other writers' more expensive gear, extensive training..... If I give up and go back to just gigging, I know I'll be where I was before.... and unless you do something different, you get the same results.... I'm still working on my first forward, and the evaluation of music can be very subjective and the target elusive... All that being said.... Is Taxi a joke? I am hoping in my second year that I'll have a rapport with the TAXI screener community that they know I'm not going to fly off the handle on each rejection and give me even more frank feedback as to where the deficiencies are. I'd like to know more as to what killed the tune for the forward. I would love to be told sometime " ArkJack, this is the fifth time you've submitted this song, and even with the changes it still sucks! You sing it in the wrong key, the instruments are out of tune, the drum programming is more than stiff.... and nobody ilikes the lyrics or the subject matter ... This song has no chance. Stop wasting the $5 and work on something else." Or perhaps something like " ArkJack...this is close, but in the 3rd verse, you need a rhyme..... move from a minor 3 chord to a b II7... melody lift at bridge from the IV to the V chords..... don't spend another $5 until you fix these points and then give it another shot.." I also worry about my style of writing as being long verse AABA as opposed to short.... which makes the tunes long and not as radio friendly.... I would like to be told that "it is always going to be too long..."At the end of the day, I want a forward.... I want to deserve it..... and I know TAXI wants me to succeed as well, because if I succeed, they succeed... For $5 a song, I don't think these guys are getting rich for the time it takes to screen the hundreds of songs per day with the responsibility to an A&R exec to find what he listed for. Taxi is not a joke.... in fact its pretty darn hard work.... on both ends.ArkJack

@dp: ...there's no need to post the same thread x-times in the whole board....so here's my answer I originally posted in the "forward success" corner:aaaehm... sorry I think your poll is not really usefull.I thought about it intensively before I joined (about two months ago), I talked to several people who used to be member or are currently member, and my personal conclusion is:The service taxi's offering is a TOOL. And unfortunately there are no guarantees like "join taxi and within 3 month you've got at least one deal" - I think some people imagine that everythings gonna be easey if they just joined taxi - wrong. Nobody said it's easy to "make it" in the music industrie, but taxi is offering a service which can help.In my experience Taxi is doing what they say they do:* listen and critique your submissions* forward them if they think your submission is on targetbasicly (besides a good customer service, the road rally, this board), that's it. Once forwarded, taxi is out of the game - it's up on the starter of the request/listing (meaning someone in the music industry) to get in contact with you - or not.The advantage is that your stuff is landing on some desktops of people who are looking for that kind of stuff. As always, many things can happen which you simply can't control - the request-starter might change his/her mind about what they are looking for, need a year to go through all the demos, etc. But that's just the same if you where submitting your stuff directly to the industry - with the diffrence that it's unsolliced material and probably go directly to the trash...just some examples to whom I talked:* current member who does a living on it. His first deal through taxi took about 2 years.* ex-member who is a hobby musician. My personal opinion: his music is just not on the level of the listings he was submitting to* lot's of examples and discussions here on the board ("why hasn't my track been forwarded..", screener shootouts, etc)think about it, be enough self-critical with you music and you should have a problem to make your decision if taxi is the right tool for you.cheers,Martin

<basicly (besides a good customer service, the road rally, this board), that's it. Once forwarded, taxi is out of the game - it's up on the starter of the request/listing (meaning someone in the music industry) to get in contact with you - or not.>Er...unless your name is Elliot Park.

Quote:<basicly (besides a good customer service, the road rally, this board), that's it. Once forwarded, taxi is out of the game - it's up on the starter of the request/listing (meaning someone in the music industry) to get in contact with you - or not.>Er...unless your name is Elliot Park....aeehm.. I'm not from the US, maybe that's why I don't know who Elliot Park is - can you help me?