Keira-WitherKay
hello all, i'm proud to say that i have on a few favours and much negotiating cheaper rates managed to have my CD of 12 tracks of original world music finished ........... and ready to sell.........
the cd is called "10 fingers, 6 strings, 2 feet, 1 guitar" and a lot of creative imagination ...............
i recorded it live, at passage one studio's in jhb ........ owned by Neill Solomon ... who was a godsend and gave me free studio time, and i just paid for the engineer, Adrian Hamilton (from UK) who did the recording in an amazing fashion, it was decided to record me live and doing full takes... to ensure the album was representative of my style live.... so true to my purist nature ...we did no overdubs AND NO BACKTRACKS OR LOOPS...GOD FORBID........HEHEHEHHEH and only edits were fade in's and fade outs.... so everything on cd is created live and by just me, no overdubs or other musicians.... it was exactly what appealed to me....
Adrian cracked a great sound.... in no time... sounds like i do live which is what i wanted ........with everything recorded on separate tracks but at same time...
in my true workaholic fashion... even though i had plenty of time.... and it was free ...i sat in performance booth ... and laid down the whole cd live in about 2 hours .... i guess the advantage of lots of live gigs.... although i must admit the stress was on not to drop a note in the last vs of a piece as no edits were to be made.... heheheh
and again the studio was pretty true so what i was playing was what was recorded.... i mean tone wise so mixdown was basically a case of setting up levels once....
it was so radically diferent approach than my 'session musician" days where we stressed over ever note... and mixing took hours and arguments heheheh this was a case of Adrian saying "don't fix what ain't broke" and minimal if any tweaking was done....
the result.... well i'm happy......... it sounds like me live ...which it is ......... and what more do i want.... so far the responce is hugely positive.....
so yay ...... how to do a 12 track cd in minimal time......... for minimal money and still like the result.... and it will take quite a minimal amount of sales to cover the costs.... before i start making profit....
ok so my questions for you guys........... is what are my options to market it MYSELF... i will obviously sell at gigs.... and woul;d like some input on online selling? i must admit i have never sold a cd online so i have no clue....
as for commercial release.... it's prob getting published by sony .... and after that we will talk distribution deals ect ......... but world music is not a great mover so i'm not holding my breath for a great deal.... or it even being sold commercially in stores..... so i think self marketing is the way to go........
ANY IDEA'S .........................
peace and light
keira
ps "ANYBODY WANNA BUY A CD?"
DonovanB
what about making your music available on iTunes or other buy-to-download sites?
DonovanB
[deleted]
Firstly, CONGRATULATIONS. Hope you had a good party to celebrate. I've seen lots of good websites for acoustic guitarists where a small amount of music is for free, or you have clips and then sell the complete cd ONLINE (not having to burn CDs is probably a plus). One that I can think of if is a local guitarist James Grace. He has a pretty sorted website.
I haven't looked into the free websites available in much depth yet, but that may be an option. Or perhaps a blog. Facebook groups and such are also worth a try. There are also online magazines that you could look in to. I just got contacted by someone who edits one. She saw my paintings through a mutual friend on Facebook and wants to feature them in the magazine. Networking is bizarrely simple nowdays. Her magazine is called ReFresh, Here's the address:www.refreshtoday.blogspot.com/
There are websites where you can be catalogued (obviously you'd know about them), but IMO there's nothing that's grabbing anyone to look at your specific link. One that I know is Ananzi. If you google South African online directories you'll find some
If you have a local newspaper that you can contact to do an article on your new release that might give you exposure. Or contact a local radio station to do an interview. I know here in Cape Town Fine Music Radio has an obligation to promote South African musicians. They also have to play a quota of local music so sneaky me got them to play my demo cd. They're still playing it after years. I don't get royalties though. Bummer.
Hope that was of some help.
aubs1
Hey Keira.....CONGRATULATIONS on completing your first CD!!! Wish you all the best of luck marketing it, whichever way you decide to go!!!!!! ?
Dirk
Well, Congrats Keira, If it sounds anything like your live performances, it's gonna be great.
TomCat
Hey Keira.....congratulations ? ?....look forward to hearing the tracks....... ?
May it readily finance you GAS account........ ? ?
Keira-WitherKay
thanks guys and gurls ......... yeah Viccy i will look into selling online.... as in downloads.... but i'm not gonna be just giving it away hhehheh so yeah in next weeks i will look into it with great zeal........ and Tom i don't suffer from bad gas hehehehhehe but i do suffer from a travel bug..... so if i can make enough selling this to finance my next tour i will be grateful ........ actually the only reason i'm in jhb was to finish this cd.... initial plan was just passing through on my way back to europe...but i got offered the opportunity.... and stayed.... think it's the longest i have stayed in one place since i was 16 ....... anyway i am overjoyed i did....
this is the 1st cd ( i have played on many cd's and written many movie and documentary soundtracks too under various names heheheh ) but this cd is truly myself not prostituting myself so in fact it's my first "real" cd and mean that word to be used in the sense that this one is from the soul....
yeah and hope to travel worldwide touring it too... the joys of being a solo artist....
so yeah keep those idea's coming .... many heads are always better than one... hehehehh especially if it's mine....
peace and light
keira
Bob-Dubery
Hey congrats!
Always make sure you have some discs to sell at gigs. You'll make more money per disc on those.
