Guide To Sending Demotapes

by John Waterman.

Editor and Pubisher of the BANDIT A&R NEWSLETTER -

Many demo tapes received by record labels, including my own, have major faults which let them down and therefore waste the money that the senders have invested in them. These notes are designed to help you produce a demo tape which will be more professional and therefore impressive so that receiving it and listening to it will be a pleasure, surely the first step to a positive response.

COPYRIGHT

Before you send any original material to a publisher or record label you should take simple precautions to make sure that you can prove ownership of the material at a certain date. The two easiest ways of doing this is as follows:-

1. Make a cassette of the material, including a lyric sheet and post it to yourself in a registered envelope, then keep it sealed, with the receipt, in a safe place. The post mark and receipt slip will be your proof of ownership at that date.

2. Take your cassette and lyric sheet to a solicitor or bank for safe keeping and get them to give you a dated receipt.

QUANTITY OF MATERIAL

A & R men are busy people and even if they like what they hear, will not have the time to sit back and listen to your complete album's worth of material. If they don't like what they hear you'll be lucky if they stay with it until the end of the first track! It may also be a good idea to consider just sending the first minute of say three songs, especially if they are long. Your aim is to whet the appetite of the listener and get him to ask for more!

Between these two extremes is where you want to be. A maximum of four tracks is right, certainly no more. This has two advantages:-

1. Of allowing you to concentrate your recording resources into a small number of songs, hopefully improving the quality of those recordings along the way.

2. Allowing you to use a short length cassette which is both cheaper to buy and cheaper to post!

QUALITY OF MATERIAL

It is most important that you continuously get frank, unbiased, knowledgable reaction to your work. It is very difficult to remain objective about your own work, especially when you have spent a lot of time and money on producing it. In the same way, relatives can give misleading reaction.

I would recommend that you seek the reaction of people such as your local radio music producer, record shop owners, club D.J.'s etc. All these types of people will be comparing your work with what is successful so a positive reaction will show you are on the right line, as well as providing useful contacts.

There are many different ideas as to how sophisticated demo's should be in terms of recording quality and production. I think that it partly depends on whether you are promoting a band, a singer or songs.

If you are promoting a band then it is a good idea to take your production ideas as far as you can as it will possibly be an important part of the band's 'sound'. If you are promoting a singer or songs then the production can be simpler because the voice, the melody, or the lyrics need to come through strongly without a distracting 'mega-production' getting in the way.

Whatever the production decision the basic recording quality should be as good as possible. Nothing is worse than listening to a noisy, distorted tape, especially when there are a pile of others to get through.

Be careful to put your strongest song first on the tape as you can't be certain that all the songs will be heard.

What most A & R men are looking for in your music is excitement, energy, emotion and entertainment. Competent musicianship and a good voice are not enough, your audience must want to hear your song again after a first listen otherwise why would they buy your record.

PRESENTATION

Your aim should be to produce a tape which is easy to listen to, easy to identify, and easy to reference with any written backup information you have provided. It is easy for cassettes, boxes and letters to become separated in a busy and perhaps untidy office, to this end you should write or print the following basic information onto the ACTUAL CASSETTE BODY :-

ARTIST NAME / PHONE NUMBER (Daytime) / NOISE REDUCTION SYSTEM USED IF ANY.

The inlay card should be used for as much supplementary information as possible to avoid the need for extra sheets of paper which can get lost. Information can include :-

REPEAT OF ABOVE INFORMATION FROM CASSETTE BODY.
YOUR ADDRESS.
TRACK LISTING INCLUDING TIMINGS.
SONGWRITING CREDITS.
LIST OF BAND MEMBERS / INSTRUMENTS.
RECORDING FACILITIES AVAILABLE FOR TAPE.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF BAND.
STICK ON OR PRINTED PHOTO OF THE BAND.

The more information you put on the inlay card the more important it is to think about its layout and the more advantage you will get from getting it all printed in some way rather than written.

Photographs can be either colour or black and white but again they must be of good quality to have a beneficial effect. They must be close up shots, head and shoulders, and well lit, 7" X 5" is probably the best size as it will be easier to post than larger sizes, alternatively 2" x 3" sticky back prints can be incorporated into your inlay card. You should think about what you're going to wear, hairstyles, location etc. before you take the pictures. It is well worth using a professional photographer if you don't know a competent amateur as the result is very important to you as the prints can be used for the demo, press releases, posters etc.

Overall, a comprehensive and well presented inlay card, with the complete story of your band and its material will be much more impressive than a commercial cassette in the manufacturers inlay accompanied by several pages of possibly illegible handwriting.

If you have a file of press cuttings pick out the best and most recent, arrange them onto an A4 sheet and make some copies. Each item should be noted with the publication name, writer and date to allow reference back especially if it is a review of a gig. This gives the recipient a chance to see what other people have said about you.

PACKAGING

This carries on from the last heading and deals with the inclusion of extra material such as photo's, press clippings, gig listings etc. along with the cassette, and also the envelopes, padded bags or boxes in which the whole package will be posted.

The most important considerations are to firstly make the package easy to open and then to encourage the recipient to keep all the items in the package together.

It is important to make your package easy to open so that the poor old A & R man doesn't have to spend frustrating minutes trying to rip off layers and layers of sellotape or opening a dozen or more staples, a sure way of giving him a negative attitude before even seeing or hearing your material. The best solution is to use a padded bag sealed with two or three large staples or a single strip of sellotape.

If you are sending a photograph or press cuttings use a padded bag of generous proportions and also include a sheet of stiff card to protect the photo from bending. It is a good idea to put your band name on the outside of the package so that it can be identified later if used to store all your items.

Remember, put your name and telephone number on every item in your package to reduce the possibility of parts getting lost. then you can think about who to send it to. Do some research in your local record shop to find out which labels are likely to be interested in your kind of music. this is more important with the independent labels who tend to specialize.

You must find out who to address the package to. Personally addressed mail will find the correct person in a large organisation more reliably than an item merely addressed to the company. It also shows initiative on your part and pleases the addressee that he is recognized as the 'Man who Matters'.

If you want your package returned to you, you should ask for this in your package somewhere and enclose the appropriate postage stamps. In my experience this works about 40% of the time but even so takes a long time to happen.

Finally it is worth phoning the person you have addressed your package to after a week or so to try to establish if it has been received or listened to. If your package hasn't been seen, describe the package and its contents and say you will ring back in a day or two to see if it has been found. If the package has been received you should try to get some feedback as to their reaction. If the reaction is negative ask if it would be possible to return it to you. If your tape hasn't been auditioned say you will call back after a week to check progress. This shows you have commitment and that you are positive about wanting to work with that label.