Skills of Our Fathers - Recording, Producing and Marketing your CD   by Scott Quinn

May was a very busy month for me. After three years of blood, sweat and tears, my CD project with Lee Venters is finally finished. But really, this is just the beginning. Stepping back and looking at all the work that went into making the CD, I didn’t really think about all the work that it would take after it was completed! Recording, producing and marketing your own CD is time consuming and requires lots of skills you may not realize.

Making a CD:

First, you have to write the music. That is not always as easy as one imagines. Each tune needs to be able to grow and progress. Next, you need to do the actual recording, getting the right musicians for the right parts.  Then there is the critical mixing process.  I learned a lot about how to clean up a track. With the advent of computer software programs, cleaning up tracks are made really quite easy.

Mastering:

Mastering is a most misunderstood process. It gives the recording consistency and clarity.  The engineer also marks where the tracks begin and end, as well as making sure all the CD text information and ISRC codes (that track online downloads) are correctly entered.

Packaging:

With the sophistication of today’s computer programs, one can accomplish really great looking CD artwork with minimum expertise. Programs like Quark and Photoshop make doing all the photos and CD text quite an easy thing to achieve when you use the templates supplied by your disc replication company.

Marketing:

Once you have a finished product, you need to get the CD into the hands of as many industry people as possible. Then there is radio airplay. Nowadays, a six-minute tune is the longest one could hope to hear over the air. However, most tunes need to be three to four minutes for radio airplay. I also suggest that while your band plays, get some of those good looking friends of the band to circulate through the crowds offering CDs for sale! Then there are posters and mass mailers that need to be done.

Distribution:

Getting online is quick and easy nowadays with companies like CD Baby, Sonicbids, Indie-Music.com etc. You can even offer your CD for sale on your very own band’s website, as well as any gigs you may do! But make sure the finished product looks as good as it can be!

In the end, it is a great feeling to know someone else is listening to your music! That really is the goal, to make a CD that others can enjoy. It reminds me of the scene in Amadeus, when Mozart was fooling around with the girl under the kitchen table.  Then he broke, got serious and said, “They are playing my music!” Then he got up and left! Yes, it’s a great feeling to have a finished product. So till next month, get out there and record your music for others to enjoy!