Industry news & advice blog

The other week we took a little trip over to Liverpool for the day to experience what is rapidly becoming one of the premier music business events for the North, Liverpool Sound City. So let us bring you a brief summary of what we saw & heard whilst we were there…

The first panel we ventured into was The Sync Panel - all about music placements and sourcing music for ads. With a line-up of representatives and music supervisors who place music for the likes of Adidas, Glenfiddich and TV show Skins, there were definitely some interesting insights to take in.

So, how do these music supervisors select the right tunes for a project? It would seem the process can work in a variety of manners; Kyle Lund who works on Skins keeps a bank of music he deems suitable to share with editors and directors, which he organises by emotion and feeling to help him narrow down the right tune for the job. In the case of sync agency Pitch & Sync they opted to commission Richard Hawley to write 3 songs about whiskey for a campaign for Glenfiddich, which both artist and brand were very happy with -  a good result for Alex Lavery of Pitch & Sync who emphasised the importance of maintaining strong relationships with the artists he works with.

Some of the trickier aspects of the job can include finding syncs, but retaining the artist’s integrity, and of course, convincing the directors and editors at the other end of the chain to use the song you have pinpointed, and steering them away from the more obvious choices of music. Sigur Ros was mentioned at this point!

Another interesting point which arose was that unknown music from little-known artists can stand just as good a chance as a million selling chart-topper at being synced by an agency or publisher for a brand, and unknown music will work out cheaper to use which can also tick boxes with brand executives. Which raises the question – what is the best way to approach music publishers and sync agencies with your music? Well, apparently there is no need for legal representation or to have a record deal, if your music is good enough it will be considered no matter what level you’re at. The panel explained that carrying out a bit of research into the type of music that publishers or sync agencies have placed in the past can be a good starting point, and if you are looking for some international promotion for your tracks then the BPI Sync Mission to LA is definitely worth looking into. Some handy hints from the experts indeed!

Next up, we headed to Build High: The Tech Panel featuring a line-up of folks from SoundOut, Soundcloud and Last.fm. Broaching the topic of connecting with your fans and promoting yourself in a world filled with technology, social media platforms, and apps, I must say I was a little disappointed to find the majority of the discussion dominated by gathering mailing lists and interacting with your fans via email. Yes, there is no doubt that this is one of the effective ways of staying in touch with your fanbase in a personal way, but hasn’t this been common knowledge for years. Tell us about the new technology on the block and the advantages/disadvantages so bands can make their own minds up…

Anyhow I digress, some excellent points which came out of the panel which bands & artists will do well to take note of were – firstly, keep your contact with fans as personal as possible so they feel special and connected to you. A great example is that of We Are Scientists, who after every tour date would email photos and stories from that particular gig whilst on their tour bus the very same evening, making fans that went to the gig feel even more involved and let those who weren’t feel like they’re in the loop. Another little tip for adding a personal edge to your communications with fans could be to utilise Soundcloud to record a private message, it doesn’t have to be about music all the time!

If you’re having a dilemma over which social media site to conduct your endless networking then probably the easiest way to the right solution is to identify the social networking site all your fans are using and stick to that. There’s no point getting to grips with Twitter if all your fans are using Facebook and aren’t on Twitter.

And a final point of note…although MySpace users are dropping, the profiles are a bit on the clunky side and you may not have updated anything on your MySpace in months, it is still worth hanging onto your profile rather than deleting it. The one advantage of MySpace is that the site does have great SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) so when people are searching for your band on Google, it is likely that your MySpace profile will pop up at the top, even ranking over official band websites. Ensure your MySpace page has a prominent link to your current website and it can still be a great way of directing potential fans to your site.

So, onto the final panel of the day – the Music Bloggers Roundtable which featured our very own Editor, plus bloggers and music reviewers from Louder Than War, Just Press Play, The Fugitive Motel and Liverpool Echo. Basically a demo workshop, each member of the panel brought along a couple of tracks to play to the audience and chat about. Then the floor was opened up to the many emerging bands & artists sat in the audience to play snippets of the demos they had brought along for the panels’ opinions and thoughts, some of which were constructive and some probably less helpful! Well it is hard to judge a song based on a 30 second fragment, but arguably this could be the same amount of time a record label big-wig will listen to a track for before deciding to put in the Yes pile, the Maybe pile or the No pile (i.e. the bin!). Good to hear an encouraging amount of talent out there and a great way to round off the day at Liverpool Sound City.