(1) Hi Dec,

My name is Rory O'Connor. My partner Ciara Hanlon subscribed me to the 'Serious Writers Guild' recently. Dec, I need your help on a couple of things, if possible.

I am currently considering a contract for a 'visual media' licensing deal. Could you possibly look at it. In the spirit of the 'Master Mind' your opinion would be of great value to me. Also, if you could recommend a good legal person, that would be great.

With regard to starting my own publishing company, would the information you provide apply to the Irish system or can you tailor it as such?

I read your first instalment with great interest and I look forward to the next issue. I read 'Think and Grow Rich' and although it is quite radical, I can relate to it and have already begun to put it into practice. Again, in the spirit of the 'Master Mind' I would be very interested to hear your comments on a CD I recently recorded.

All the best,

Rory O'Connor. [ Membership No. : NET0550030W ]

Hi....

OK

One thing at a time!

Nice to have you on board...and Ciara....no relation of Shamous Hanlon the champion cyslist who went to The O'Connell School with me? [grin]

I will certainly look at the Visual Media licensing document...but they tend to be pretty standard and if you are happy with the advance/signing fee , percentages, length of term and the exclusive/non-exclusive angle then there is little to be afraid of. You generally find that if this is from an advertising agency then it will be scrupulously correct and honest.

If this is a product for public consumption then you should be more worried about the MCPS, PPL and the PRS angles. And certainly worried about not having the titles protected as your own copyrights within your own Publishing Company.

This is not a sales pitch but a piece of genuine advice. This is all stuff that you have to LEARN. If you are actively sought after for your music then you MUST have your own ACTIVE Publishing Company in place...this will ensure that you are aware of all the proper percentages etc. and in fact you can offer your own Company's contracts instead of labouring over someone else's...... that make sense?

My 'Publishing for Less than £100' manual is just that...a complete Business package with all the various contracts included and on Computer Disc. I only got this together after being asked by so many of the Members. just click on PUBLISHING

Next:

Good legal person.

I certainly can: 'Sheridans' in 8 Red Lion Square, London WC1...Bernard has been a pal of mine since he started in the Sixties.......BUT!!!!!!!!

Will cost you a fortune! Similarly a legal dick who doesn't cost a fortune wouldn't know as much as the dustman about a Show Biz. contract....again YOU have to learn! I have always found that I know more than any Show Biz accountant or solicitor and I give them the bullets to fire! That is the attitude I advise all in the Music Business to adopt. That is the REAL way the money is made.

"Would the information you provide apply to the Irish system or can you tailor it as such?"

The basic principles involved are the same...and every Music contract finishes with the note that "any dispute arising through this contract will be judged under the laws of ****** country"

I also give the advice that any major contract should be looked over by a reputable show biz lawyer.....THAT IS STANDARD PRACTICE! And every Music/Management/Publishing company does this as a matter of course when there is a lot of money floating about.

"I would be very interested to hear your comments on a CD I recently recorded."

This is one thing you will hate me for [but not for long]....I always advise guys to hold fire with their demos until you have a couple of months under your belt with me...100% of the guys then agree with me that I was dead right!

The principle is: "if you haven't had ginormous chart success so far then you have been doing something or a lot of things dreadfully wrong....and it's usually not a lot to do with the music ...although I will help you get that commercial 'sellable' edge"

Send it if you must, but I could tell you now, this second what it will be like!

You are simply not ready yet...and that is born of a lot of experience [although there is always a first time for me being wrong!]

I have included you on the list for 'One Minute With Dec' each Sunday for FOUR weeks for FREE.

.

I hope this helps... Regards

DEC dec@makehits.co.uk

www.makehits.co.uk

"where the 'lil guy gets the same chance as the big guy"

(2) Hi Dec,

Yeah I got a digital mixer with digi compression on and I got an analogue mixer with inserts. I'm wondering what is the best way to combine the two?

Thanks

Ps

I tidied every thing up patched my new leads in and the whole things sounds loads better...But the problem is, is that the noise of the amp (Samson servo 170) is also causing hum through my speakers, ( Spirits) even with the whole mixer muted...the mixer is making no noise at all because I checked with headphones. I have all the mains leads right away from the audio and the amp as far away from the mixer as I can get it...Is the fact that the amp is 4ohm and the speakers 8ohm a possible cause?

Whichever is the biggest with the most channels should be your master mixer and the other then fed into it through either two inserts or two channels...simple.

A modern day amp will deliver whatever ohmage it's asked to deliver by the speakers . Two speakers (left/right) will cause it to run at 8ohms if the speakers are rated at 8 ohms each.

It sounds like you have a 'difference of earth potential' somewhere in your equipment set up.

If there is a hum from the amp and speakers with EVERYTHING physically disconnected [not just muted]...in other words the amp is on it's own and just connected to the speakers...then you have either an earth problem in the house wiring (a friendly electrician can sort this out) or there is a problem with the amp....or both.

If the electrics are perfect (with a good earth) and the amp is silent with nothing connected then the problem is further on....probably a difference of earth potential between the various bits of equipment.

Alternatively the amp may be near another piece of equipment which is picking up radiated energy from the amp. Amplifiers should be as far away from other equipment as possible...in big studios they are in the next room.

You need to connect each piece one by one and check which one (or two, or three) is causing the problem. If the equipmewnt is racked then the hum could be coming from one piece and causing a hum through the chassis of the rack mounting [hum-free's from Studiospares will sprt this]. Then it might be a case where some of the equipment should be de-earthed...this is a job for an experience electrician as there is a life and death situation with electricity. Never attempt this without qualified knowledge.

regards

DEC

www.makehits.co.uk

"where the 'lil guy gets the same chance as the big guy"

(3)

Hi Dec

A quick question...

I'm having my first attempt at syncing up more than one piece of MIDI equipment to my PC. I appreciate I'll need a MIDI Thru box for the external modules, but I can't seem to get my head round MTC code. I've read through both the relevant bits in the manuals and am confused as to the correct way to set it up between the PC and the hard disk recorder.

Do I set up the PC as master and the recorder as slave or the other way round?

Thank you in anticipation

Andrew [Member No. STR0489030W]

Andrew...

You can do it both ways.

Sadly, you are running headlong into one of the reasons 'pros' do not use PC. It is not a professional format and as soon as you ask it to do the professional things..like run a hard disc recorder, then you have problems...by the way, you will find it cannot keep time either...and more than likely will be wildly out of tune....SORRY! I did warn you in my 'Serious Writers Guild' writings.

I had this exact problem the other week with a record I was producing...the guys had programmed everything at home....so, I suggested [for speed] that the guys bring their PC and link it up to my gear...WHOOPS! Two hours later [all that time on the help line] we gave up and started afresh on the Atari.

The best advice I can give you is to get the Hard Disc Recorder to run the time code. That will mean linking the computer 'out' to the 'in' of the recorder and selecting the 'utilities' section of the recorder, reading the manual carefully, and then recording the time code into the recorder. When finished, reverse the procedure....have a midi lead from the 'out' of the recorder to the 'in' of the computer. Select the 'track sync out' on the recorder to be the 'master' and the computer to be the slave and that should work. The 'out' of the computer then drives all the midi gear through a midi distributor network.

The help lines for Hard Disc Recorders [particularly Roland] are extremely helpful.

By the way, always use a midi powered distributor for the midi signals to your various modules, effects etc. I never daisy chain...and I never have a problem.

regards

DEC

www.makehits.co.uk

"where the 'lil guy gets the same chance as the big guy"

(4) I`ve talked to you about songwriting and I have a keen interest in it, I love it but at the end of the day I am a performer looking even to sing someone elses material. I can write songs and have written some more which you haven't heard they are: "rub me up, lick me down songs" which will get the teenage hearts of today pumping.

I`m sure that if you listen to them with the constructive view that you already have you will not turn the tape player off after 30 sec but 20, he he.

Should I do the whole orchestral arrangement or do you just want me on Guitar and my vocal, Let Me Know?

Thanking you again for the letter, please reply to the above.

P.S: Love the WEB-SITE,

The voice of the future.

Robbie J Brady.

Robbie..... You have great enthusiasm and get great fun from what you do, performing...that is good.....Trust me on this bit of advice:

There is no point in a million years wasting money on demos or even postage with the songs you have written at the moment.

I can tell from the 'tone' of your Email the way your stuff is going to sound!

Remember, I get 40/50 Emails a day saying that they write Hit songs but hate modern music! And not one of them has a hope in H*ll of writing a Hit...UNTIL THEY CHANGE THEIR BASIC ATTITUDE TOWARD 'TODAY' MUSIC.

There is only one thing that will sell [and is worth my while listening to] and that is a TODAY potential Hit....and you only get to write those Hits by LEARNING HOW TO WRITE THEM.

This is not a fun, enjoyable, 'just for a laugh' business...it is deadly serious.....it is precisely the same as brain surgery....takes an age to learn it and is only practiced by the sucessful few.....would you have a brain operation performed by an enthusiastic amateur?

I hope this helps! Your enthusiasm could carry you through! Plus the knowledge.

Regards

DEC dec@makehits.co.uk

www.makehits.co.uk

"where the 'lil guy gets the same chance as the big guy"

(5) Hi Dec,

This is my first e-mail after having joined the Serious Writers Guild. I've just "digested" the Neophyte grade.

Making time for the little man, when yet your agenda must be bursting of "more important" things to do, I find it very remarkable...You've certainly turned this little man's hope into renewed enthusiasm and I hope you will keep your rainbow shining for a while longer.

One of the main dampers on my progress with songwriting has been creating the drum-track.

You say you're not so fond of the "small" computer sound you do seem to use the computer for creating drum-tracks. So...

-What's your basic procedure when you start creating the drum-track for any song?

What's your approach on "live midi-sequencing" and "trigger-drumming"?

regards

August [Amsterdam: Member No. NET0549030W ]

A lot of questions...no problem! Your enthusiasm jumps off the page....

All the loop and drum stuff will be covered in the Serious Writers Guild material you will receive as we go along.

I create in a way which most pros work. If it's a 'moving', 'dancy' or hip-hop piece I find the loop closest to what I want...in fact better than what I want...and there are tons of sample CD and CDroms out there.

I set it up on Akai sampler [as Norman Cook does - see the article on my site www.makehits.co.uk/art008.htm ] . I never use PC. I then duplicate the kik by writing it exactly the same on the computer...then I do the same with the snare, then H.H and all the percussion. So what I am doing, really, is recreating the entire drum loop.

When finished I will make sure it is 'jumping' more than the original loop by adjusting the position of each kik or snare etc....again i don't use grids, I use the proper positioning in 768 segments....I prefer that as I am a trained musician. I will still use the original loop as a sizzle in the background by taking out a lot of the lows and lo-mids....this definitely adds excitement to the track. It gives an indefinable 'quality'.

The reason for going to all this trouble is so that I can adapt the drum sequence to the track I am working on...I am not constrained by having to use the entire original loop all the time....understand? This way it sounds very professional, but has the sizzle of the original...and even better, because now, the individual parts of the drum kit are more 'in yer face'.

As you say, I do feel [as do a lot of my producing pals] that the sound from the left / right of a PC is too small!

Working the way I do the drum sound is:

1) The loop from the Akai

2) Basic drum sounds from an Alesis D4 or similar

3) Sample individual drum sounds from another Akai or the same one layered on top of the D4

4) Maybe more layers added from other modules.

So I will be mixing, say, sixteen tracks plus, of drums/percussion on the mixing desk. That is a lot different to the left/right of a PC. soundcard. So, you see that each individual drum sound has been made as exciting as possible...maybe two three/four samples layered to make up one drum sound...I will then resample the whole layered individual sounds and store them for another project.

Therefore, August, my sounds are 'evolving' all the time. Getting more sophisticated. It certainly eliminates the common fault of a sample...say, a snare sampled from a Dre production sounding nothing like it did on the Dre record!

As for 'live'...I will have a lot to say about that in the coming releases. I developed [a long time ago] the system of using a track playing live with the guys on stage...so that all the extra effects and sounds that were used in the studio can be heard in the live performance...

I played 'The Waterfront' in Belfast last Saturday night [a huge venue] and used that technique with the live orchestra...the result? Total standing ovation fron 4,000 plus audience....we've worked that way for fifteen years now...as do 90% of the major bands in the world...but I did it first! If other acts on the show, are just using the live sound, then when we come on the sound gets twice as big....the audience feel we are in a different league...in fact, they think we are using a different sound system mostly.

Hope this helps....

DEC dec@makehits.co.uk

www.makehits.co.uk

"where the 'lil guy gets the same chance as the big guy"

(6) Hi Dec

I have a few questions that I've been meaning to ask you for ages!

1-What and how is the best way to write a covering letter to publishers etc?

2-If I have (seriously) 20 mega Max Martin style hits written ready for production which one do I operate on?

3-How can my local radio station tell me I write "excellent" songs and yet not do a thing for me?

4-If a management company uses my material to showcase a singer or group can I get paid for it?

I've had a crap day at work,I hate the people I work with but I've just written a corker!.....You win some....

Thanks for everything.

Richard Freeman- [Member No. BAR0510030W]

Hi Richard

Interesting questions! And extremely easy to answer....I warn you though, the answers are not what you want to hear, and also you will never get these 'correct' answers from anyone else....[radio stations?]

"1-What and how is the best way to write a covering letter to publishers etc?"

I take it, immediately, that covering letter means a letter WITH a demo?

In my writings you will see that I have never sent a demo in my life to a Publisher or to a Record Company. Again, you will see, from my writings, that there is a 'proper, business like' way of contacting them. They are in 'business', so they react to 'business' letters...that's how we do it! They do not react to demos...they go in the bin with the other three hundred per day. Simple.

Richard, you have no idea the number of demos I get, with no labels on, no contact details, with a scrap of lined A4 paper torn out of a pad stolen from the workplace...always in green biro and illegible. Wrong spellings, wrong grammar all over the place....and these guys expect a deal? Get real!

When writing ANY letter, in this great business, ALWAYS remember that the second word in Show Business is BUSINESS and the second word in Record Industry is INDUSTRY. There is an art to writing exciting business letters that get action....and I teach it. All of my letters get action....you joined 'The Serious Writers Guild' ...didn't you? You reacted to one of my letters!

"2-If I have (seriously) 20 mega Max Martin style hits written ready for production which one do I operate on?"

Richard...

Thr truth is: if you have 20 HITS written, then you would not be writing this Email! There has never been a Potential Hit written, in history, that didn't become a HIT. Make sense? It is IMPOSSIBLE to write a Potential Hit and keep it to yourself...your own excitment alone will get it 'out there'.

For instance: if someone walked up to you in the street and sang: 'Survivor', with no accompaniment, no music, just their voice, plus enthusiasm...what would your reaction be? Mine would be: "Shheeeeettt, where did you get that song? Have you got a tape, a CD? Follow me to the nearest studio."

So the reason you have not got action with the twenty songs is either:

The songs are not HITS

You are not a HIT [yet!]

Hit songs jump at you, grab you by the throat and scream "HIT" at you! Nobody has to tell you! If you once say: "Tell me what you think of this song?" then you are doing it all wrong! I have never asked that in my life....

">3-How can my local radio station tell me I write "excellent" songs and yet not do a thing for me?"

Because they say that to EVERYBODY who sends a demo...don't you understand? If you send a demo you are screaming at them: "rank amateur". What's the easiest way to get rid of you? "Great material, excellent, let us hear anything else you have, we'll keep this one on file...it's terrific! We especially loved the fifteenth song on the CD". THEY ARE PATRONIZING YOU, LIKE THEY DO ALL THE OTHER TWO HUNDRED THEY GOT THIS WEEK!

And also......

Radio stations cannot make money out of your music, they are in business to make money...so why should they get involved?

">4-If a management company uses my material to showcase a singer or group can I get paid for it?"

If this happens and you haven't got your own Publishing Company in place, then again, you are screaming: "RANK AMATEUR"

Richard, immediately, go to: "How To Start Your Own Music Publishing Business for Less Than £100". For £87.50 you could be in business and collect that money for your song being performed.

Anytime ANY song, composition is played to more than a handful of people in a public place then it collects royalties...but only if PRS, PPL know about it. If you don't have a Publishing Company, they don't know YOU exist, they don't know your song EXISTS and certainly they could not know that the song was performed!

Simple!

You are falling into the trap of thinking [as all amateurs do] that someone else will do it for you...THEY WON'T.

Richard ...you are in a BUSINESS - so you must conduct yourself in a businesslike way...that is how the money is made! It is not sufficient to say: "Oh, I'm a writer, that's what I want to do, I don't want to be involved in all this Business stuff." If that is the case, then that's what you will do...'write' but you will never make a cent...except by accident....just like the Lottery.

The most telling few words in your Email? "and yet not do a thing for me?" in your question re. Radio Stations.

No one will do anything for you in this business, unless it will make money for them...that is the whole principle that Show Business is built on. A Record company wants to make money by selling HIT songs to twelve year olds. A Publishing Company, likewise, wants to make money by publishing or co-publishing Hit songs and Hit compositions that SELL to twelve year olds....this business is simple - once these very logical principles are taken on board.

You will notice that in everything I say, and write, the word 'SELL' is repeated a lot? Selling is the only way that money is made...so the first thing you have got to do is 'SELL YOURSELF'. When you do that, with ease, then your music becomes easy to sell...if it is sellable.

The most important thing you have got is enthusiasm...and that is your gold dust!

I hope this helps.....

Regards

I am always here for you....

DEC dec@makehits.co.uk

www.makehits.co.uk

"where the 'lil guy gets the same chance as the big guy"