Welcome to the third and final part of the ‘How To Make A Mixtape’ series. This series was started because we kept receiving mixtape related questions. After replying to a few of those questions individually, we decided to create a series of posts where people could get all the answers they need instantly. So far in this series we’ve answered beginner questions like “What is a mixtape”, to more popular questions such as “Can you use other people’s beats on your mixtape” and “How do you make your mixtape stand out from the crowd”. In this final part, we’ll be look at some questions you’ll need to ask yourself when pricing your mixtape, releasing your mixtape, and promoting your mixtape.

While there’s some very useful information in this topic, our previous topics on the subject provide info on the earlier steps on making the ultimate mixtape. So if you haven’t already done so, you may want to check our previous posts before reading this one:

1. How To Make A Mixtape, The Ultimate Guide Part One, and
2. How To Make A Mixtape, The Ultimate Guide Part Two.

If you’ve already read those we can move forward…

Pricing Your Mixtape

When it comes to pricing your mixtape, it’s often good to think about what the purpose of the mixtape is. Do you want to use the mixtape as a way or promoting yourself as much as possible, or are your goals more profit related?

If mass exposure if your main aim, you may want to give out your mixtape for free, or in a no cost exchange (E.G In exchange for an email address, or for a certain amount of promotion to be done by the fan). This type of pricing strategy can help get your music quite widely spread with the right promotion, but also runs the risk of being seen as a lower quality product (As it was free to obtain).

If making profit is your main aim, you will of course want to sell your mixtape. When pricing it you could go one of two routes:

1. You can price it on par with other mixtapes within the genre. This’ll subconsciously give the impression it’s worthy of buying as it’s similarly priced as all the other CDs. You will of course need to back this up with a good product if you want people to choose your CD over the many others on display however.
2. You could under cut the market. The aim here is to make it cheaper then the other CDs available, so people with less cash flow that want a CD will be more inclined to buy your CD over others. Once again, you run the risk of being seen as cheap (In a bad way) and therefore not of a good quality, but with the right marketing you can over come this.

A good strategy I’ve found is to do a mixture of both. You can release a short promo CD for free, then release a bigger paid one soon after. The smaller CD will hopefully get your name out there, then if people like what they hear they will go on to buy your full CD.

When it comes to pricing your mixtape, you also have to think about where you’re selling them. Mixtapes often sell at similar prices to albums in high street stores, but a bit cheaper in underground record shops. If you’re selling them on the streets you can expect to sell them for a fraction of the price, sometimes as low as what you’d get from a sale or return or distribution deal.

Releasing Your Mixtape

The next thing we’re going to look at is releasing your mixtape. Firstly let me say there is no one correct way of releasing your mixtape. The strategy of releasing a successful mixtape will vary depending on what you want to achieve for this mixtape and what music genre you make music in. There are some general tip that can be used for any type of mixtape however, so today we will look at those.

The first thing you need to think about is what format you want to release your mixtape in. Are you going to press it up and put it out as a physical product? Or are you going to keep it as a digital download only? Physical products have the benefit of making you look more like a serious musician, and give the chance for people who don’t like buying online a chance to get your product. A digital download however can save you money in the sense you don’t have to pay to press up your music to CD.

If you’re giving away your mixtape for free I’ll advice you only release a digital download copy. While there may sometimes be reasons to press up copies of a free mixtape (If you want to give some to important industry figures to make a good impression, or you want some freebies for a show etc) you should generally make your fans go to your website and sign up to your mailing list in exchange for any freebies.

So now you know what format you’re going to release your mixtape in, now is the time to get your music to the general public. If you opted to release your mixtape as a physical product, your best bet would be to go through a distribution company. For a cut of the money you make, a distribution company can get your mixtape into shops you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get them into. This includes both physical and online music shops, and good ones can even get your music distributed worldwide. A typical distributor will take at least £ / $1 for each CD they sell for you, and while this many vary, the price is often worth the service they provide. Another benefit of using a distributor is that they can often collect your money from record shops as soon as the record shop have agreed to stock your CD. That means you won’t have to wait till your CDs are sold to customers to be paid.

While not all music distribution companies operate the same, many distributors that deal directly with independent musicians work like this:

• Once you have your product, you bring a set amount of pressed up CDs to your distributor.
• You agree a price that you want for each CD.
• The distributor then shows your music to shops and tries to get them to take them in. If the shop chooses to sell your product, the distributor receives money for the product.
• The distributor sells to as many shops as they can in a set period of time. Once the time limit is up they pay you for any CDs they sold, and give you back the ones that didn’t sell.
• If all CDs are sold they may ask you for more copies if there’s demand from the shops.

The other way to get your music into shops is via ‘sale or return’ deals. This is where you give your mixtapes to record shops, they sell however many of your CDs they can in a set period, then pay your for any CDs they sold in that time. Any CDs they didn’t sell they give back to you. Check out our previous topic What Is A Sale Or Return Deal (SOR) And How To Get One for more info on how to get SOR and distributor deals.

How To Promote Your Mixtape

It’s no good having your mixtape in the shops if no one knows it there. Without the knowledge of it’s existence, no one’s going to buy it. It may sound obvious, but I’ve seen too many musicians put months into making a mixtape, get it into shops, cross their fingers and hope it sells. This is not an effective business strategy, and not one I’d recommend to anyone.

There are many ways to promote your mixtape, but often thinking out the box can do wonders your your marketing efforts (We already talked about making your mixtape stand out in part two of this guide). On top of that you should look into doing all the tried and tested marketing methods:

• Live or pre recorded TV or radio shows,
• Performing at live events,
• Getting your music to radio and venue Djs to play,
• Video promotion if you have the budget,
• Magazine adverts,
• Online promotion (Social media, on your own website, call in favours on other websites etc), and
• Flyers (These can be handed out at venues or left places for people to pick up) and other paper based promotion.

I’d suggest you pick a few of these to do rather then attempt all of them. Unless you’ve got a big team and / or budget behind you, it’d probably be best to focus on doing a few of these methods very well.

You should focus most of your promotional efforts pre-launch to raise awareness of your product and build up a want for it, as well as when it’s actually released to make people go out and purchase it. This is the period you’ll get most of your sales, so make as big a noise as you can during this time. The more people talking about it before and during its launch, the more sales you will make.

Having said that, promotion for your mixtape should never stop. Even when initial sales slow down you should at least have adverts for your mixtape on your website, and be promoting it on any radio and TV shows you do. Remember, not every one will have caught your initial launch, so giving new fans a chance to discover your mixtape can mean more sales.

That’s it for our “How To Make a Mixtape” series, I hope you’ve found it useful. Please leave any comments or feedback below in the comments section, and if you’re in the process of making a mixtape let us know how it’s going. Similarly if you’ve already released a mixtape and have any advice for our readers let us know.

If you haven’t read them already you can catch our previous posts with more tips on making the ultimate mixtape below:

How To Make A Mixtape, The Ultimate Guide Part 1,

How To Make A Mixtape, The Ultimate Guide Part 2.

*If you’re eager to start writing for us now without reading this post, check out the Write 4 Us page of this  website.

In the few short months that we’ve been in existence, Independent Music Advice has gone from strength to strength. Knowing that we had something useful to share, we decided to set up a place where people could get together and learn the business side of the music industry. Since setting up, we’ve constantly added more features to benefit you, such as this blog you’re reading now, our free Independent Musician Success ebook, our new interactive Facebook and Twitter pages (Links can be found on the right hand side of this page), and our top quality Music Business Resources page.

Today, we’re happy to announce yet another new feature to enhance the user experience, the opportunity to write for the Independent Music Advice website! The aim of this website is to empower our readers by giving them the knowledge they need to have a financially successful music career. And while we have more then enough knowledge to share with you (Make sure you’re subscribed to our mailinglist to be informed about all the latest news, we’ve some HUGE posts coming for you in the near future, you get a free ebook when you subscribe), we realise that there are other people who also have useful information which they’d wish share.
It’s doesn’t matter whether you’re a managing director of a multi million pound company or a runner to an independent record label, as long as you’ve music industry experience and have useful advice to share we want to hear from you.

So, What Are The Benefits To You?

Some of you may not be sure why this would be a good opportunity for you. If you’re still scratching your head, here are a list of reasons why this may benefit you:

• You’ll get exposure to our growing number of readers. This month we’ve had thousands of page hits, and our numbers are increasing every month. So, why not make our readers your readers?
• Writing good articles can help establish you as a knowledgeable person within the industry. So if you want to get your name out there more, this is the perfect opportunity.
• You get to build backlinks to your own website. If you know about internet marketing, backlinks are essential for ranking well in search engines. The more backlinks you have, the higher you’ll rank in Google and the more free traffic you’ll gain to your site.
• You get to do a bit of self promotion at the end of the article. In the final paragraph you get to let people know who you are and let them follow through to your website.

As well as all the above benefits, if you consistently write good articles for us, we may even open up other opportunities for you…

So if you’re good at writing and have any good advice to share with our readers, read the writing for Independent Music Advice guidelines and show us what you’ve got. We looking forward to seeing your entries.

If you’re a new musician or haven’t yet released your first independent CD or vinyl, you may not have come across the term ‘sale or return’ (Or SOR for short). In this article we will be looking at what a sale or return deal is, an example of a sale or return deal, and how to get one.
There are two types of deals you can get when trying to get your music into record shops, a ‘money upfront’ deal, and a sale or return deal. With a money upfront deal, a record shop will buy your CDs from you and give you the money upfront. They then re-sell these CDs for an increased price, keeping all the money they make from them. As the CDs now belong to the record shop, they can sell them for any price they want or even give them away for free if they so choose. While many musicians like upfront deals as they make instant bulk sales, this type of deal is becoming more rare for independent musicians. The only way independent musicians are really seeing upfront deals is if they have a proven record of selling large amounts of CDs, or if they go through a distributor (We’ll look a bit at distributor deals in this post too).

If you don’t get a money upfront deal, the other option is getting a sale or return deal. This is when you give the record shop a set amount of units to sell, but instead of them paying you upfront for these CDs, they take them in and give you money for however many units they sell. The rest of the CDs they don’t sell after a certain amount of time they give back to you.

An Example Of A Sale Or Return Deal

Here’s an example of a sale or return deal. Let’s say a record shop asks you to give them 100 units of your CD which they will sell for £6 per unit. Typically, they will give you half of the selling price for each unit sold within a set period of time, say 3 months. So let’s assume your CD sells 59 units in this shop by the time this 3 month period is over. For each of these 59 units you will receive £3, and £3 x 59 = £177. This means you will receive £177 plus the remaining 41 CDs that didn’t sell once the 3 months are over.

An Example Of A Distributor Deal

If you were going through a distributor however, the deal may look more like this. A distributor will have a listen to your CD and see if they want to distribute it or not. If they decide to, you will sort out how many units you’ll be giving them as well as how much you’ll both get per unit. Let’s say the distributor says they’re going to charge shops £3.50 to buy your CDs from them. Usually the distributor will take £1 for themselves for every unit they sell and give you the remaining £2.50. So if they take in 100 units and get 75 of those into shops, you’ll get £187.50 and the remaining 25 units they couldn’t get into the shops for you.

This differs from a SOR deal in the sense that anything the distributor gets the shops to take in they’ll get paid upfront for. This means you’ll also get paid upfront once the distributor has done their job, whether or not the shop sells your CDs. Notice that in this example the distributor is charging the shop a higher price then what you would get in a SOR deal. This is because A) Distributors have built up a relationship with the shop and are probably known for giving the shops only the best material, and B) Because once the shop have the CD they can usually sell it for any price they see fit.

Keeping Your Music In Shops After The Sale Or Return Deal Is Over

Sometimes you can get the shop to extend the period of the SOR deal, but if you or the shop don’t think any more units can be sold it may be best to take the CDs out and try and sell them elsewhere. It’s a good idea however to keep a few copies of your CD in the more popular shops even after your hype has died down, and there are a few good reasons for this:

1. It’s Good To Have A Real World Presence.
   Many musicians forget that not everyone has access to a computer. While it’s important to have your music available to buy online, giving people the option to go to their local record shop and pick up a nicely packaged copy of your CD is also important. So leaving maybe five copies of your CD in the more popular record shops (After your sales have slowed down and your SOR deal has expired) will mean people still have access to your music in a variety of ways.
2. Being In Shops Provide Credibility.
   Having your CDs for sale in shops makes your music more credible to some people, importantly to many key industry figures you may come along. Many record labels for example are more likely to sign a talented person who they can see has put the work in. If there’s two equally talented musicians, one having released their CDs into shops while the other hasn’t done much, which one is the record label more likely to sign?
   When you release your music into shops you’re more likely to get access to a better quality of collaboration as well. If you can show producers and vocalists you can get them free exposure by getting them on your CD (Which will be going into shops potentially worldwide), you’ve a much higher chance of getting good collaborations then if you were just releasing your music on your MySpace page.
3. You Get A Back Catolog Of CDs.
   As you release more CDs you’ll obviously gain more fans (It is possible for the number of your fans to wither away as you release more material, but that’s an issue for another post). These new fans may want to hear some of your earlier releases, meaning you could end up selling copies of previous CDs months or years after they’re released. Some record shops bunch each musician’s CDs together as well, so when someone’s looking for your current release they may end up stumbling apon some of your other releases and buy those too.

How To Get A Sale Or Return Deal

The great thing about sale or return deals is they’re easy to obtain. This is because there’s no risk to the record shops, they can simply take you CD in, and if it doesn’t sell they don’t lose any money. If it does sell however they’re in profit.
Most of the time it’s as easy as ringing up a record shops and arranging a time to come and see them about getting your CD in their for a SOR deal. You then go in there, show them your CD (They may want to hear a sample of your music and / or hear what promo you have or will be doing) and they’ll let you know if they want to take it in or not. If they do you’ll have to fill in some quick paper work which includes details of how many units they take in, the price you’ll receive for each unit sold, and when to come and collect the money / remaining CDs by. You’ll also need to fill out your contact details such as your name and address in case they need to contact you for any reason. You then give them the CDs and that’s it, you rinse and repeat for any shops you want your music in.

Sale or return deals are probably the easiest way of getting your music into shops, and can be a good way for independent musicians to get their music to dedicated music buyers. I hope this article has giving you a good incite into how sale or return deals work, if you have any questions or anything to add please do so in the comments section below.

As many of you will know, MySpace has been steadily declining for some time now. While it used to be an effective tool to promote your music, these days it’s full of musicians promoting their music to each other. The irony of this is that the majority of musicians are only there to promote their music to you, and aren’t really interested in hearing what you have to offer.

So while MySpace continues to die out, where should music communities go to?

Facebook has been one of the many places musicians have experimented with to building up their fan base, but it has never been a complete music solution… Until now!

Enter BandPage, an application which allows you to add music and other features to your facebook fan page. It integrates with SoundCloud to provide audio on your Facebook page, and allows you add a banner and show dates to your page (Sound like the best bits of MySpace anyone?). It also allows you to let people download your music if you so choose, and provide a link to where people can buy your songs…

BandPage is run by RootMusic, a company that provides music related tools for Facebook. If you haven’t already got a BandPage page, now is the time to get one and start promoting your music on Facebook, the world’s biggest social networking site. And to make it even easier for you, we’ve written a step by step guide to get you started.

How To Set Up A Facebook Fan Page

Before you start fiddling with BandPage, you’ll need a Facebook fan page. If you haven’t already got one, here’s how you set up a Facebook fan page (If you’ve got one already, you can skip ahead to the section “How To Set Up RootMusic’s BandPage For Facebook” below). To create a Facebook fan page, make sure you’re logged onto your facebook account and enter the web address “www.facebook.com/pages/create.php” (If you haven’t already got a facebook account you can create one by going to facebook.com and registering one). You then select to create a page for “Artist, band or public figure” and choose “Musician” from the drop down menu.

You then enter your page name in the text box provided (e.g your musician or band name, in this example we used “The Best Band In The World”), and confirm that you’re a official representative of this person or band And that’s it, your facebook fan page is now made. I suggest you take time to look around your new facebook fan page, upload your (Music related) pictures, website details and information you want your fans to see.

How To Set Up RootMusic’s BandPage For Facebook

Now that you’ve got your Facebook fan page set up, you’re ready to create a BandPage to go with it. Before you do anything, make sure you are logged into your facebook account then go to the Root Music website (rootmusic.com). Choose the button “I make music”. A pop up box then appears asking if you want to link root music to your Facebook account. Click yes. The window then closes and you’re taken to another page asking if you accept their terms and conditions. Have a read through, then if you accept choose to register with Facebook or enter a new email. In this example we’ll register with our Facebook account as we’re going to be setting this up on our facebook group page anyway. They will then request for you to confirm this (If clicked the facebook option) and you should once again allow the connection to your Facebook page. You will then be taken to a page where you’ll be asked which of your Facebook pages you want to edit. Select the required page and a new window will come up. At this point you can select to watch the given tutorial or carry on without watching it (We’ll run you through the main points to get you up and running anyway, so it’s your choice. We do however give added tips in this guide, so even if you do watch the video make sure you carry on reading this article too).

If you didn’t watch the tutorial (Or if you did and it’s now finished), when you click continue you’ll be taken to the band editing page. This is where you control the look and features on your BandPage page, so have a look around. You’ll be able to add your music, add up coming shows, include a banner / customize the look of your page (This last option can only be used with a BandPage Plus account, an optional paid addition) and more. I recommend you first upload some of your music for people to hear.

As I said before, BandPage uses SoundCloud to host your songs, so you’ll need to to choose the option “Click to connect with SoundCloud”.

A pop up window will appear, allowing you to either log into your existing SoundCloud account or create a new one. Once you’ve done the one that applies to you, click “sign up and allow access”. You’ll then be able to upload songs from your computer, so get uploading! Each track you upload is automatically saved, so upload as many tracks as you want then set your preferences. You can make them downloadable if you want, or make them non downloadable and include a link where people can buy them. You should then also add album artwork and album name. Another thing BandPage lets you do is add your up and coming show details, so if you have any add them now.

Once you’ve added all the info you want, the next step is actually implementing your BandPage section on your existing Facebook fan page. To do this, you’ll need to go to the BandPage facebook page and click the ‘Add to my page’ link that is positioned below their main picture. Click the Facebook fan page you want to add BandPage to and that’s it, it will be connected. You can now close the window. Now go back to your fan page and choose to edit the page (The link for this is located under the main picture on your band’s home page). Under the “application” section, choose to add a RootMusic tab to your facebook page. Now under “Wall settings” make the “default landing tab for everyone else” BandPage.

This will mean that whenever a new person visits your Facebook fan page, the first page they’ll see will be your BandPage page. Now edit the other options as you see fit and that’s it, you’re done. You’ve now made a section on your Facebook fan page where people can listen to your music, see your up coming show dates, purchase your music and much more. Congratulations.

To see how your new page looks, go back to your fan page by clicking on your page’s picture and selecting the newly appearing ‘BandPage’ tab.

You can edit and customize the page until you’re happy with the results for free, but if you want to add a banner and other custom design features (Uploading custom background, changing the colours etc) you’ll have to upgrade to the BandPage plus option. As we write this that option is $1.99 per month, so it’s up to you if you want that or not. What I will say however is that the first impression you give people can often mean the difference between them looking around and them swiftly moving on, so defiantly consider this option.

I hope you found this guide helpful, let us know your opinion about BandPage in the comments below. Does this spell the end for MySpace?

* Snoop Dogg’s BandPage page on Facebook

Welcome to part two of the ‘How To Make A Mixtape, The Ultimate Guide’ series. This is a three part series detailing good practices and tips on how to make a mixtape and sell it. For those that haven’t read already (Or even if you have but just want to get reacquainted with the basics), you should read:

before you read this.

If you’ve already read that, let’s move on. In part two we’ll be looking at how ethical it is to use other people’s beats for your mixtape, where to get backing tracks for your mixtape, and finally how to make your mixtape stand out from the crowd. So without any further ado, let’s get into it.

Can You Use Other People’s Beats On Mixtapes?

This is still a question without any concrete answers. While everyone has their own opinions on this matter, mixtapes are generally known for musicians vocalizing already well known backing tracks. This practice is very widely accepted, especially in the more urban hip hop and grime music scenes. Many producers and vocalists don’t mind people doing versions of their material as long as they’re not used for commercial release. If you did want to commercially release your version, you’d have to contact and get permission from the original owners of the martial before you could go any further. You’d also have to pay them royalties if you’ll be selling the song.

There are some people that don’t want others to use their material without permission though, whether people are making money from it or not. As other people’s beats are copyrighted, using them without permission could lead to a law suit. However, this is very rare if you’re only using their instrumentals for mixtapes. The most I’ve seen happen from tons of mixtapes I’ve seen been released is an angry email being sent by the original producer (They wanted to cash in on the mixtape’s success, but the issue was resolved by the producers tune being taken off the mixtape instead).

While I’d say using other people’s material for mixtape songs is largely safe, you’re still using copyrighted material so do so at your own risk.

Where Can You Get Beats For Mixtapes

Once you know what type of beats you’ll be using for your mixtape (Original or already popular beats) you have to go about getting them. If you’ll be using already popular beats, most of them can be found by doing a quick Google search. You’ll want to search the name of the artist that sings the song, followed by the name of the song and then the word ‘instrumental’. So for example, you may do the search “Rihanna Rude Boy Instrumental”. This search result will turn up places you can get your chosen instrumentals on the internet. Some will have to be paid for, some will be free. I recommend you only download off trusted website though, as illegal websites may have viruses on them which can ruin your computer.

One really good website I’ve found for getting instrumentals is Karaoke Version. This website allows you to CUSTOMIZE and download popular beats for a low price (£1.50 / $1.99 EACH). Say for example you want to download a popular instrumental but didn’t like the horns in the song. No problem, you can easily edit the horns out before you download it. Or don’t like the drums? You can get rid of that too. This of course is a great customization feature and allows you to get your mixtape sounding exactly how you want it.

If you will be using original beats however, you may have to do a bit more searching. You’ll need to find producers who can make an instrumental you like and will be willing to let you use it for your mixtape. If you’re new starting out in music this can be tricky, but not impossible.

One method I’ve found that works is using forums. Forums are a great place for communities to get together and discuss a specific niche, and you’ll often find producers, singers, designers and much more on the more popular ones. So, how do you go about finding these producers?

First you need to find a relevant forum. I suggest you Google search your chosen genre of music followed by the word ‘forum’ which will give a list of the top forums in that genre. Look around the top three for a while, sometimes the producers hang around and post their material in a ‘production’ area of the forum. Other times you’ll have to to a bit more digging. If there’s no select area for producers, try posting a topic saying you’re looking for producers to feature on your mixtape. Leave a sample of your work and a contact email address. This will hopefully have producers finding your post and contacting you if they like what they hear. Note though, it’s always advisable to post a few replies to other topics before you post your own to look like you’re part of the community. You’ll get a much better response if you do this as you won’t look like you’re just spamming the forum.

Another place you can find producers is MySpace. You may already have an idea of some producers in your chosen music genre, but if not, do a bit of research and MySpace message these people. When messaging someone to ask for a beat, make sure you keep the message short and straight to the point. Even if they’re a slightly well know producer they may be getting messages every day, so you’ll need to be able to make your point quickly. You also want to appear professional (No slang or short hand, message fully spell checked etc) and list the benefits of you using their material. Lastly, make sure you give a sample of your material and contact details so they can get back to you if they so choose.

These are some of the main and most effective ways for getting beats for your mixtape, but there are many others so don’t be afraid to experiment with other methods as well.

How To Make Your Mixtape Stand Out

Mixtapes in some genres of music have become pretty much a standard thing. Even if they wouldn’t define it as a mixtape, a demo with 6 or more tracks if basically what a mixtape is all about. So with everyone having or making mixtapes it’s important for you to make yours stand out. But how can you go about doing this? Here are a few ideas:

• Mix Your Mixtapes
  This may sound obvious, but you can mix your mixtapes to make them stand out from the crowd. Many mixtapes are structured in the same way as an album, tune after tune with a small gap in-between each one. Not many people actually make the songs blend together, so doing this will differentiate yours. This will make your CD sound like it’s flowing better, and sound like an overall experience rather then a bunch of songs put together. Be warned though, this’ll make it harder for Djs to use selected tracks easily. A solution for this however is to put all of or the most popular songs unmixed at the end of the CD. This’ll make everyone happy. You can also just send the unmixed tracks to Djs directly if there’s no more space on your CD.
• Create A Talking Point
  One great way to making your mixtape stand out it by doing something unique, but not just with your music. How about you call your mixtape something that can’t help but be noticed, or give away freebies to anyone that buys it? UK rapper Bashy is a great inspiration when it comes to making his mixtapes stand out, boosting awareness by getting everyone to talk about them. He did this by: 1: Calling one of his mixtapes “Ur Mum Volume 1”, a provocative title which had people talking about it well before it’s release, 2: Giving away a free lolly pop attached to the side of his second mix CD “The Chupa Chups mix CD”, and 3: Calling his third website “Bashy.com” to promote his new website. Ideas like this can really get people talking about your mixtape and want to give your music a listen, so think about how you can differentiate your mixtape to create a buzz around your product.
• Remix The Backing Tracks Of Already Known Songs
  Many mixtapes use well known songs with the musicians vocals, but why not remix the backing track too? A website I mentioned earlier in this post (Karaoke Version) allows you to do just that, taking out any bits of the track you don’t like. Give it a go.
• Do A Mixtape Series
  Many people release mixtapes with too many songs on them. They fill their mixtape up with thirty songs / the full 80 minutes of a CD and don’t come with any other material for a very long time (If at all). What people don’t realise is you need to build up momentum in your music career, you can’t just release one mixtape and expect you’ll make a name for yourself just from that. You need to be consistent and release regular material, if you’re constantly in people’s faces they’re more likely to take notice. Release just one CD is not doing a lot to stay in the spot light. As it takes a lot of time to record a 80 minute CD (Which is why people take so long to release their follow up if they haven’t stopped recording by then), why not make those tunes into three separate 25 minute CDs? Or two 40 minute CDs? That way you’ll have material to follow up with every say three months and stay in the public eye. And just for the fact you’re releasing regular material people will talk about you.
  Remember, even if you’re first mixtape doesn’t take off that well but your second and third one do, there’s always the chance of re-releasing the first one to make further sales. People may even order your first CD without any promotion so they can hear how you started out or just get more of your material.
  If you do decide to do a mixtape series, make sure you keep all the mixtape names the same, differentiating them by adding ‘volume 1′ and ‘volume 2′ etc at the end. This will give your brand continuity and allow people to more easily recognise your material.
• Get Established Features
  While this isn’t exactly an original idea, it is effective. If you get a musician everyone want to hear on your mixtape, everyone will have a look even if to only see that musician. If your vocals on the song are good enough, there’s a good chance you’ll convert some of the feature’s fans in to your own. And being associated with a top act also raises the way people see you.
  While it’s not always easy to get an established act on your mixtape, once you get the first one it’ll be easier from there (Providing you have enough talent). You can then name drop (This may sound ‘un-cool’ but it is a method that can work very well) and use that name to get other big names to work with you. There’ll always be people who’ll think “He worked with him, I guess that means it’ll be a good idea for me to work with him too”, and the more established musicians you work with the more that will be willing to collaborate.

Well, that’s about it for part two of the ‘How To Make A Mixtape, The Ultimate Guide’ series, in part three we”ll be giving tips on pressing up your mixtape, releasing your mixtape and pricing your mixtape.

Make sure you sign up to email updates at the top of this page to be sent part three directly to your email inbox once it’s available. Alternatively, sign up to the RSS feed below to be notified whenever we have a new post. As always, I’m looking forward to reading your comments.

Here at Independent Music Advice, we like to listen to what you as the reader wants. We’ve had many people arriving at our site looking for advice on making mixtapes, but not really finding what they were looking for. Having a quick google search myself, I found there are no real resources showing musicians what to think about when making mixtapes. So we decided to write one!

Over the next three posts we will be looking at some of the most searched for mixtape questions we’ve had! If there’s anything else you want to add or ask, please do so in the comments section.

Once you’ve read this, one please also check out:

for more mixtape tips and advice.

What Is A Mixtape

While mixtapes were originally tapes which compiled people’s favourite songs together, the modern meaning is quite different. Mixtapes are now widely used as a tool for promoting a musician prior to a album or single release. They can also be used to raise awareness of a musician, keeping them in the public eye. While mixtapes are mostly popular in the hip hop and grime music scenes, many other music genres make demos that can typically be described as mixtapes.

To make it clear:

• A mixtape does not have to be in tape format. It is most popularly presented in CD or digital download format.
• While they can be, mixtapes don’t have to be ‘mixed’. Many are in fact a group of songs put together with a small gap in-between like a regular album.
• While you can use original production for your mixtapes, many people choose to use established instrumentals and save the original material for their album and single releases.
• Mixtapes are generally at least least six tracks long, but some can fill up a whole 80 minute CD.
• Although often sold, mixtapes are generally used as promotional products. They’re used to raise awareness of a given musician, sometimes before an album launch.
• Mixtapes aren’t expected to be at the same quality level as albums, so musicians often use them to get material to the public without worrying about using expensive studios and top quality packaging.

Why Make A Mixtape?

There are many reasons people would choose to make a mixtape instead of a single or album, but here are the main ones:

• Collecting Beats Tend To Be Easier.As many people vocal other people’s instrumentals for their mixtapes, finding backing tracks that are suitable to use can be a lot easier. You don’t have to deal with lazy producers that take ages to get anything to you, you can simply find a instrumental you like online and instantly download it. As many musicians listen to other music in their chosen genre, it can be easy to draw up a list of backing tracks you want to use due to the fact you’ve heard and enjoyed them already. This can cut a lot of time of the planning process.
• People Who Haven’t Heard You Before Are More Likely To Listen.One of the main selling points for making a mixtape is that people will be more likely to give your music a chance. It can take people a few times listening to a new song before it actually registers with them, especially if it’s a musician that’s new to them. If however you’re a musician and you’re vocals are over one of their favourite songs, you’re more or less guaranteed to have their attention immediately! This is not to say they’ll end up liking your vocal (You will of course need to make your version enjoyable), but you should get more people giving you that initial chance.
• Subject Matters Are Easier.Some people choose to base their version of a song on the original, keeping the same theme and same vocal styles (E.G. The voice or flow of the original vocalist, similar catchy bits, same subject matter as the original etc). This saves time on constantly thinking up new concept ideas, and allows you to save your original ideas for your singles or album.
• Mixtapes Are Cheaper To Produce.As mixtapes aren’t expected to be of the same quality as albums, you don’t have to put the same amount of time into it as you would producing an album. And if you’ve ever read more then one post at Independent Music Advice, you’ll know that time is money. Many people don’t use adilibs when making their mixtape, this saves on studio time and therefore money. Many musicians also don’t use top end recording studios when making mixtapes, allowing cheaper studio costs but still a good level of production.Another way some musicians save money when putting out mixtapes is the packaging. Some choose to go for slim line CD cases rather then the more expensive jewel CD cases used for albums. This means the CD is still protected against damage, but for a fraction of the cost.One thing I’ll say about making mixtapes on the cheap however is this: Don’t sacrifice the quality so much that your music becomes un-listen-able. Although you should make small cut backs so your album looks and sounds better then your mixtape (This’ll make people want your album even if they already have lots of your mixtape songs), you need to remember the mixtape is what pre sells the album so needs to sound good in its own right. If you make a poor mixtape, chances are people won’t buy your album.

How To Make Money From Mixtapes

How do you make money from mixtapes? Well, you make money from mixtapes in the same way you’d make money from a single or album; By selling them. You can get your mixtape in shops worldwide, from the smaller underground record shops, to the major high street music outlets. Some people also choose to sell their mixtapes in person on busy high streets, setting up base near popular shops within their music genre.

It’s also a good idea to sell your mixtapes at any live shows you do, especially if you’re the headline act. If this is the case, people will be attending the show to see you, and many will want to take home a souvenir of the occasion. And what better to give (Sell) them then your mixtape?

Depending on the content of your mixtape (And if you use other people’s instrumentals or not) you may be also able to claim royalties from your mixtape plays. If one of the songs from your mixtape gets played on legal radio for example, if the production and vocals are original you can claim royalties for it. If the production is not original and you haven’t got the owner’s permission to use the instrumental however, you won’t be able to claim money from royalties (And they may even be able to approach you and ask you for money).

That’s it for part one, in part two (Of three) we’ll be asking if you can use other people’s beats on your mixtape, we’ll be looking at where you can get beats for your mixtapes from, and finally looking at ways to make your mixtape stand out from the crowd.

Make sure you sign up to email updates at the top of this page to be sent parts two and three directly to your email inbox. Alternatively, sign up to the RSS feed below to be notified whenever we have a new post. As always, I’m looking forward to reading your comments.

Independent Music Advice has today teamed up with fellow music website Music Think Tank to write a post on Why All Musicians Need To Have The Business Know How (Please check out the post and leave your views in the comments section of the site). As you may know, we here at Independent Music Advice  feel strongly that all musicians should learn the business aspect of the music industry. Having talent and waiting for a record label to come and sign you up is a dying strategy at best, and one I’d never suggest for anyone to use! Due to the changing structure of the music industry, a more pro-active approach is required to break through all the noise and make your music career a successful one. Record labels are more likely to sign someone who has already proven themselves in their chosen genre, rather then someone who has talent but hasn’t build up their fan base yet. This means you need to have a ton of fans before a record label would even consider signing you, and without the ‘music business know how’ there’s very little chance you’ll get those fans.

For a further incite into this topic, please take a look at our post “Why All Musicians Need To Have The Business Know How” and leave a comment below that article with your views. If it gets enough comments and views it’ll be moved to the front page of the Music Think Tank website and reach a much wider audience. Thanks for your help.

One thing I’ve noticed, is that a lot of people take the term being independent too literally. They think that just because they don’t have to rely on a record label, they don’t need help from anyone other then themselves and their group members. But with the truth is, everyone will need help sooner or later. Unless you’re very lucky, there’s a lot of work you’ll need to be doing as an independent musician, often too much for one person.

My stance has always been the same: You need to learn to do everything by yourself, but understand you can’t do it all on your own.

What I mean by that is this; while it’s important to learn the music business inside out, you need to realise it isn’t possible to put together all the factors needed for success by yourself. You need to learn how the music industry works and what needs to be done to progress in it, but no one person would have the time to implement all the needed components without help.

While being in a group can often make the job easier (More hands make lighter work), sometimes it’s not enough. Often group or band members still won’t have the means to do everything by themselves, they are after all musicians like you.

Who’s Help Do You Need

During your journey, you may need help from the following:

• Promoters / Your Fans:
  If you’ve done any promotion before, you’ll know promoting can be a full time job. Promoting entails constant website updating, website promotion, finding shows, getting DJ songs, building new contacts, and much more! The job is never ending, there’s always some way to help you further get out there. If you were to rely only on your promotional efforts, you wouldn’t get anywhere near as much work done as you could with a team of promoters around you.
  A good idea is to get either specialist promoters and / or fans to help you in this area. Many musicians get fans to help with promotions by encouraging them to share things with their friends. Social networking websites have made this even easier then ever before, as even by contacting just one fan with some influential friends your material can get all around the net.

• Video Makers:
  As with most of these things, this is something you could do if you had the right resources. But in reality, it wouldn’t be practical to make all your own music videos. While you can use consumer level camcorders for promotional efforts, they can only take you so far. As you get more well known, people will be expecting a higher level of product from you and you will need to provide. Unless video making is something you want to taker seriously and have the budget / time to learn the craft, you may want to leave it to someone who already knows what they’re doing.

• Designers:
  Along with promoting, designing has low barriers to entry. Good quality free image editing software has meant that anyone wanting a go at designing can do so for freely. So why would you want to get someone to do designs for you? Well, mainly because not everyone has a good eye for art. We can often see when someone else’s work looks good or bad, but going through the process step by step it’s hard to tell how yours is turning out. It’s like the saying “Bad singers don’t know that they can’t sing” (X Factor anyone?). It’s often hard to judge your own voice or acting skills unless you record it and watch it back, so unless you’ve got a proven eye for art (In other words you’ve been working on perfecting your artistic flair for a while), it may be best to leave this to the professionals.

• Studio Engineers:
  While most musicians don’t realistically think they’re going to make a studio to record all their own material in, some people do. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, you need to ask yourself if you want to be a musician or an engineer. Being an engineer is very time consuming if you’re allowing other people in your studio, and the studio can be very costly to start up in the first place. Often it’s much easier (And cheaper) to hire studio time and let a professional engineer take the session. Then, if you really want to be able to record your own music, do so when you’ve established your name. Then with the money you make set up shop.

• Record Labels:
  Even when you’re an independent musician, you can’t count out the possibility of signing if the right deal came along. At times in your career, record labels may come along and be willing to help you. They may have heard a single you released that didn’t go very far, but may be willing to do a single deal with you. If they have the resources to push this single as far as it can go, this may be a good opportunity for you. Remember, although record labels can be a liability, they can also be helpful if you’ve proven you can sell the amount of records needed to make the deal a profitable one. When it comes to finances, they can push you further then you probably could by yourself.

There are many other people you may need to rely on during your music career, but these are the main ones. While these are all things you can do yourself with the right amount of time and money, considering the amount of time it’ll take you to learn all these things (And then implement them) it won’t most likely be worth it. So how independent an independent musician are you? And what other types of link do you think you may need? Let me know in the comments section below.

We’re living in a digital age. Musicians for many years have been utilizing services such as MySpace and Facebook to promote their music to potential fans from all across the world. Some have been doing this successfully, others not so much. And while Facebook and a few other sites have continued to be effective at promoting yourself if used correctly, other sites such has MySpace have lost their ability to be influential and gain many real fans. And who’s to say which big website will “die” next?

The thing with many websites is they come and go. They can be the biggest thing in the world one minuet (Myspace, Hi5, Face-Pic anyone?) then be practically non existent the next. This leaves people regularly creating new profiles on new sites, and largely starting again from scratch.

How A .com Website Will Benefit You

Let me make this clear from the start; When I say a .com website, I mean a website that isn’t just another page on a social networking site. It doesn’t have to be a .com domain name per say, you may prefer a .net name, or a country specific domain like .co.uk. It’s doesn’t matter too much either way, but as .com’s are widely recognised worldwide, I suggest you go with one of those.

Creating your own website free from any external ‘social networking’ sites is probably the best things a musician could do for their online career. Having your own website (E.g. www.YourName.com) would mean that no matter what other websites come and go, your website will be there the whole time. It’ll always be a place where your fans can connect with you, and if there’s a change to any of your other sites, they can find out at your ‘base’.

Here are some of the benefits:

• Easy To Sell From.
  
  While some social networking websites don’t allow you to sell directly from their pages, you’ll have no such problem with your own website. There is software and services that allow you to easily automate the process of selling digital downloads from your site (We’ll be showing you how to do this in our next post, so sign up to our updates to know when this is). The good thing about this is you get to keep 100% of the profit. To sell on other websites (E.G iTunes etc) you need to give up a percentage of your sales. If you make a lot of sales, this can mean you lose out on a significant chunk of money.
• Highly Customisable.
  
  With websites such as Facebook and Twitter, there’s only so much you can customise them. This means they won’t always end up looking how you want, or doing what you want. This can be frustrating. With your own .com website however, you can customise as much as you like! Even if you’re not a wizz at web design, there are programs and designs out there to make everything extremely. Nice.
• It’ll Always Be There.
  
  No matter what other websites come and go, your site will always be there. A popular website starts to lose it’s ‘cool’ or shuts down? No problem, your fans still know to go to your website for all the latest news. Which leads to the next point:
  Good Fan Retention.
  Imagine you use a social networking site and all your contacts are on there. If this site was to suddenly shut down for whatever reason (It does happen) or people were to stop checking that site, you haven’t really got any way of contacting your fans any more. And with less fans comes less sales. If your .com website was up and running, it wouldn’t be as much of an issue as you’re still connected to the fans via your main site.
• Differentiation.
  
  While websites such as Facebook are still effective, they’re no longer unique. Everyone’s got one, so it’s quite hard to stand out from the crowd (Which is exactly the same thing that happened in Myspace). As not so many musicians have .com websites, you having one full of good content will help you stand out from the crowd.
• Professionalism.
  
  As not many musicians have .com websites, you having one will promote a professional image. This’ll make people give you that extra bit of respect, at least initially. You will of course have to keep their interest with good content and audio, otherwise your website’s gone to waste.

So That’s It For Social Networking Sites?

No, not at all! I’m not saying you should ditch all other additional sites and focus strictly on your main site, in fact I’m suggesting quite the opposite. Social networking sites will always be good simply for the fact they can help your material go viral. Having links to your other websites from your main website will allow people to connect and keep in contact with you via their chosen method. The more people connect with you, the more people you can keep updated about what you’re doing. And the more people that know about what you’re doing, the more fans you’ll gain and sales you’ll make.

Having a main .com website is essential for the modern day musician. As digital sales and online promotion become increasingly important to a successful music career, if you don’t have a place to carry out these tasks effectively you’re going to get left behind.

The next post we put up in the Independent Music Advice blog will be a guide showing you how to set up your own website and sell your own digital downloads from it. Keep checking back or subscribe to this site via RSS feed below to check that out.

As I’m sure you’re aware, talent alone doesn’t determine how successful you are in you music career. There could be two largely identical musicians, both with similar styles, image, and budget. Yet one of them could end up playing to audiences of thousands of screaming fans, the other could end up playing bedroom sets to them and their mates. But why is this?

Well to be honest, there are many factors that could make this happen, but today we’re going to look at just the one: Who you’re making music for.

So who are you making for? This one question will determine your decision making through your whole career. You’re either making music for yourself, or your making it for your audience / potential audience. When you make music for yourself, you make songs exactly as you want them, regardless of feedback of any sort. You have tunnel vision, and as long as you like the music you’re making, nothing else matters. However, when you make songs for your audience, feedback is very important. You make music you personally like, but you’re also open to constructive criticism and making your songs better. Which of the two sound better to you?

Before I go any further, let me explain why I’m writing this post. I have a very successful Dj friend who’s been playing at top clubs for many years. As with anything, to get where he is now he had to put in the hard work and learn his business inside out. One of the thing he learned along the way is this: “You have to play what the audience want”. It really is as simple as that. If he was to turn up to clubs and play what he wanted (For argument’s sake, play hip hop to a people who came to the club for pop music) he wouldn’t go down too well at all. He also wouldn’t get very many booking, if any. If however he gave the crowd what they wanted (And gave it to them well), there’d be a good chance he’d get more bookings from both the current club and others when word about him gets around.

Although this seems like a obvious thing when it comes to Djing, many people don’t think about this when it comes to their music career. It is however exactly the same; you need to give the audience what they want! Unless you’re aim is to sell all your CDs to your friends, then you need to appeal to people other then just your nearest and dearest. If you don’t obtain fans, your music career simply won’t take off. The fans are the people that allow you to get paid for doing the thing you love, so not listening to what they want is basically like asking them to not support you.

How Do You Know What The Audience Wants?

So how do you know what the audience wants? Well, as I’m sure you’ve heard, the simple solutions are often the best. Firstly, you could just ask them. If you have a website or other method of communicating with your audience, you could ask them what they want to hear more of, what other musicians they like, what their favourite all time songs are, and many other questions that’d help you better understand their wants and needs. You could also, for example, run competitions where you give out a prize for the person who gives you the best song idea. By the end of it, not only would you have a great new song idea, but you’ll probably have a few. You may even end up with a whole album’s worth of good ideas in a very short space of time.

Another way you can see what an audience wants, is by analysing them. Going back to my DJ friend, he knows every set he plays is different. Before he even steps up onto the decks, he scopes out the crowd to see what type of people he’ll be playing to. This will determine how his set starts off. He doesn’t however start playing one type of music and stick to it for the whole night, he adapts to the crowd’s reaction. If they look like they’re starting to get bored with one type of music, he’ll switch it up until he finds something they enjoy. No words have to be exchanged, he can simply see how they react to what he’s doing.

You can also do this. By analysing how well your singles, albums and other material do, you can get a better idea of what the crowd do and don’t want. Then you can adapt your style accordingly.

While it’s important to find out what the crowd want from your music, you will find sometimes that even them crowd themselves don’t know. In this situation, it’ll probably be best to give them what you enjoy making and then gauge their reaction. Either they’ll take to it and you keep going down the same route (Switching every now and then so they don’t get bored), or they’re not to keen and you test a new style out on them.

So, when it comes down to it, who are you making your music for? While you obviously have to enjoy the type of music you’re making, your listeners should have a big say in the direction your music takes. They are after all the ones that are funding your career, and if you lose them, you haven’t really got much left.

Before I go I want to say this; Letting your fans know how important their voice is to your music career can help strengthen your relationship and make them feel more involved. Giving them a sense of belonging can make them become more loyal to you, and even spread the word about your music. This can only be a good thing, so if you take the fan’s opinions into account, make sure they know this.

So tell me, who do you make music for?