Sign Yourself To A Record Label
In this very special Christmas hangout on Blab I decided to speak and encourage my fellow rappers on why they should sign themselves to a record label. This might seem like an odd thing to say at first but after you hear the context of my message I think it will make a lot of sense to you. I also went on to encourage everyone to start thinking like business owners and investors opposed to just thinking about being employed or self employed.
As the year of 2015 is coming to a close I really wanted to give my students something to carry with them not only into the new year but generally in their life moving forward. I did my first hangout last month and with this being my second hangout and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way everything came out. There was so much knowledge that was shared not only from my self but also from everyone who joined me on the chat.
A plethora of topic’s we’re discussed such as record contracts, intellectual property, main stream artists vs independent artists, the 1,000 fan theory, knowing your worth, being yourself, the purple cow theory, different ways to write a song, unique ways to build a following and earn a living and much more!
In the spirit of Christmas I decided to rock my Santa hat with my signature ugly Christmas sweater with the custom installed LED snowflake strobe lights. I believe the excessive glory which was radiating from my festive apparel caused my webcam connection to malfunction several times throughout the broadcast. At least that was the theory that the support team over at Logitech came up with. But I hung in there and weathered the storm as Logitech is currently working on updating their webcams to be able to handle the overbearing amount of magnificent swag that the holiday season reliably ushers in each year.
I hope that you enjoy this new podcast as much as I did making it and just maybe there will be some information within it that you can carry with you moving forward. Best regards and wishes! LET’S GET IT!!
Cole, how’s it going? Just wanted to ask a couple of things. Can you explain me algorythm of making a beat and a song. I see it in this way
1. Creating synths and drums
2. Mixing
3. Mastering
If it is a song then
1. Creating synths and drums
2. Recording vocals
3. Mixing
4. Mastering
Am I right or missed something? And could you recommend me some tutorials on mixing and mastering a track? Thanks for support 😀
Hey Cunst, really there’s no set way that you have to do it. Sometimes I come up with melodies while I’m riding down the road and record them on my phone and then come back and make beats around the melody I’ve already creating. Sometimes I’m practicing piano and come up with a cool combination of notes or melody that I really dig and then I end up making a whole beat around it. I’ve written songs before without any music and later made the music to it and I’ve also made music before any lyrics or hook. So with all that said, just move in the direction that you are inspired. But the way that I work is I typically mix while I’m producing. It may not be a concrete final mix but it’s at least a rough mix to get my ideas down with a general idea of how it sounds.
Here’s a playlist that shares a ton of great tips and tricks on mixing and recording. Check out the rest of Grahams content on his youtube channel as well as his website http://therecordingrevolution.com
I hope this helps you out 🙂
Thanks, Cole 🙂 I just wanted to ask about really important thing. How much can I earn being a beatmaker on the internet? I’m ready to make a beat a day. Actually I need a lot of money to start my rap career (I’ll have to advertise myself and make it to the USA from Russia)
Hey Cunst,
Honestly there is no limit to how much money you can earn as a producer. You first need to figure out your strategy for marketing, build awareness, who your market it is, your business structure, your brand etc.. There’s tons to be said about all of these things. If you ever want to chop it up about all these things make sure you check out my coaching services I offer at http://colemizestudios.com/coaching
It would be great, but I have money issues at the moment, so I’ll let you know when I’m able to order an hour of coaching
That’s cool, I totally understand. Sounds good, I’ll be ready whenever you are 🙂
Cole, how are you doing? I just realized that people might like my music, but they might not like it, so I’m really worried about my flow and my language because I’m not American and I don’t feel language as good as native speakers. I know a girl whose name is Sasha Spilberg she’s Russian too and she performed in London, it seemed like people didn’t like her at all (take a look at that very vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo6X9WQaXE8) So I’m really scared to be in the same situation
Hey Cunst, the truth is people like and also dislike all artists. There’s no one artist that everyone in the world likes. In Sasha’s case, she can sing very well but her performance was a bit weak. She didn’t approach the stage confident and even admitted to the audience that she was nervous which is understandable. Her music wasn’t very strong either and she had no live musicians playing along with her to add more performance value. It’s not that the crowd didn’t like her, she just didn’t impress them that’s all. So don’t let that discourage you but rather learn from this video. Stage performance is an art within it’s self and you have to win over the crowd and deliver a powerful and emotional performance. Standing in one spot while singing over an instrumental just isn’t going to cut it for some audiences myself included. I hope this helps 🙂
Sure, thank you, Cole. By the way, I heard you released a mixtape, where can I listen to that?
Hey Cunst Here’s a link to some of my underground stuff http://buff.ly/1IPZi2e I’ve going to try a drop a new song each month this year let’s see how it goes 🙂
I think it’s gonna work in the best way possible 😀
Awesome!! I agree! 🙂
Hey, forgot to ask something else 🙂 I’m learning music production at the moment and I can’t understand percussion. I just don’t know how to create drum pattern, can you recommend some articles covering this?
Just search youtube for hip hop drum programming and you should find tons of information on it. I hope you find what you’re looking for 🙂
Yo man. I had to call it a night early so I only saw half of the live show. But I just caught the second half. I think there is much value added to the community to host these kinds of gatherings. Too Dope. There is something more in it and people will catch it.
God Bless
Keep it up!
Thanks Chris! I’m really glad that you enjoyed watching the second half as well! indeed there was so much good information in this hangout! I’ll keep them coming each month as they have been well received by everyone. Thanks for the encouragement! God bless and you keep everything up as well! 🙂