Giving Good Demo

ONE OF the best rock movies ever made was a film called American Hot Wax, a true story based on the life of Alan Freed, the Cleveland disc-jockey who is reputed to have first coined the phrase “rock and roll.” Freed was one of the most influential figures in the early days of rock and his personal stamp of approval could literally make or break a band. In the movie, everywhere Freed goes, he is seen being followed by musicians and bands, tagging along, pestering him to play their songs on his radio show or to organise a record deal.

From the moment he leaves his apartment, to the time he arrives at the office or radio station, there are doo-wop quartets and harmony groups breaking into song around every corner. He’s even followed into the lobby and occasionally into the elevator by some of these over-enthusiastic, would-be stars! Such a scenario may seem hilarious to most people nowadays but in those early, more innocent times, this was probably the only way for unknown acts to get any notice from those at the top.

Thankfully, most bands these days do not have to resort to such drastic tactics – otherwise the carpark out in RTE would be awash with musicians, while Dave Fanning’s house would doubtless be under siege from hordes of bands clamouring for his attention!

One of the reasons for this is the invention of a wonderful device known as the demo tape. Every band or solo artist who is serious about achieving success will make at least one, or more likely, several demo tapes during their career and how they approach this noble art may well prove crucial in what eventually becomes of them.

But what exactly is a demo tape and what precise function does it serve in today’s music industry? The word “demo” is of course, short for demonstration and that’s exactly what it does. It demonstrates to the listener how good (or bad) your band sounds. In practice, though, it’s much more than that and demo tapes fulfil a variety of useful functions.

The first thing they do is to give young bands an insight into the recording process. No matter how good any outfit may be – live or in the rehearsal studios – they may find that they sound totally different (i.e crap) on tape. Listening closely to your own recordings helps you to smooth over some of those rough edges and get rid of, say, that extended guitar solo that sounds great at a gig but which goes on for aeons when you actually have to listen to it.

For songwriters chasing a publishing deal or trying to get artists to perform their songs, demos can show in rough form, how well you construct songs and melodies. More significantly, a demo can be the key which opens the door to a band’s eventual success and many bands have been signed on the strength of a demo tape.

With the proliferation of home recording equipment, it’s probably fair to say that nowadays bands spend more time engaged in recording activity of one kind or another than they actually spend playing live gigs. Most rehearsal studios have recording facilities and bands continually tape their musical and artistic endeavours, if only to get a rough idea of how they are progressing.

One thing is clear, however, and that is the fact that the nature and role of what was known as the “demo tape” is changing rapidly. According to Paul Waldron of Trend Studios in Dublin, demos are now taken a lot more seriously by bands and musicians. “The line between what is called a demo and the finished product is getting closer all the time,” he says. “With home recording equipment as good as it now is, the quality of the master is down to the band’s ability to use the equipment. Very often, what started out as a demo, can end up either on an album or an EP, whether for promotional or commercial use.

“Lots of bands come to us to have their demos transferred to recordable CD (CD-R),” he continues, “which is a great way of presenting your demo and bands also find that airplay is a lot easier to achieve with CD, as radio stations in general won’t play cassettes.”

So, as you can see, a demo can be more than it might appear to be at face value.

It’s debatable however, whether a demo-tape alone can score a record deal for a band. Record companies receive thousands of them each year and proportionally very few bands are actually signed up. Apparently, 2,000 demos are sent to London-based record companies each week and industry sources privately admit that most demos are not listened to in any great detail, if at all.

A couple of years back, a UK based music magazine decided to test the effectiveness of sending unsolicited demos to record companies by carrying out a secret survey. Deviously, some might say, they created a fictitious band, complete with photos, press release and a cassette-demo with full track listing with songwriting credits and sent it off to twenty-two of the major record companies. The results were highly interesting, not so much for the slow response but the fact that the tapes which were sent out were completely blank!

Out of the twenty-two companies chosen, only eight copped on to the fact that there was nothing but blissful silence on the cassettes while others sent the standard rejection slip that normally goes something like, “thank you for sending us your demo tape but unfortunately it is not quite what we’re looking for at the moment.” Overall it made for depressing reading, especially if you are one of the many hopefuls out there trying to get your tape heard.

Despite this however, demos are still a vital first step on the road to success for most bands and to have recorded material of some kind is absolutely essential. Most venues like to hear what a band sounds like before booking them, while TV shows, competitions, magazines., etc all require demos from bands at some point, especially if they have not released any material officially.

The actual nuts and bolts of recording demos are pretty straightforward – in theory that is – and there are a few simple “do’s” and “don’ts” for those wishing to achieve the best possible results from a demo recording session.

Terry Hackett runs a one-year sound engineering course at Ballyfermot Vocational School which attracts up to twenty-five people every year. As a professional engineer in his own right, he’s worked on over one hundred demos and has recently been involved with bands like The Wilde Oscars and 1980’s UK hitmakers, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. As a result of this experience he has compiled a list of helpful tips for those budding recording stars who want to avoid the more obvious pitfalls, and here they are:

1. A studio can’t make bad instruments or equipment sound better. Beg, borrow or hire some decent gear and make sure you have new guitar strings, plectrums, drum sticks etc.

2. The song should be as complete as possible in terms of its melody, structure and arrangement, while the musicianship should be as good as possible.

3. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse before you go near a studio.

4. Don’t rely too much on studio gimmickry to cover up your own inadequacies

5. Don’t be afraid of new technology.

6. Don’t bring friends into the studio.

7. Quality and not quantity is what matters most. One good song is better than three average ones.

8. Pick your engineer carefully – it’s important that you get along with him or her. A studio is a confined place and personalities can become frayed at the edges very quickly.

9. The use of alcohol or drugs in the studio is not a good idea.

10. Be patient. It can take time to get something right but it’ll be worth it in the end.

There are basically three separate stages in putting together a decent demo. The early, pre-production period is one of the most vital and should not be ignored. It is at this point where bands decide which songs to record, work out basic arrangements and as outlined above, rehearse, rehearse and rehearse until every vocal, every guitar riff or lick and every rhythm track is as complete as possible. This will save invaluable time and money and will ensure that the band can go into the studio with absolute confidence.

The second stage is the recording process itself, where the tracks are laid down, mixed and a master tape is produced. The final part of the process is in deciding on your ultimate format i.e. whether it will be on DAT, cassette or CD. You will probably end up with a DAT master tape anyway, which can be used to produce the final format of your choice.

Ex-Blue Angels member, Declan Jones of Cannibal Studios in Churchtown, (where An Emotional Fish recorded their highly acclaimed Sloper album) points to the fact that lack of experience can be blindingly apparent, especially among young musicians.

“You’re very aware that young bands can freak out as soon as they enter a studio,” he says. “It can be a cathartic experience for them and very often they suddenly realise that they don’t sound as good as they thought they were.

“Another problem is bad equipment,” he adds. “A crap drum kit can ruin a session. Lack of rehearsal is the major problem, though, and it can be frustrating for an engineer when it’s obvious that some members of the band don’t really know what the others are doing. I hate to point the finger at drummers again but sometimes you find it’s the ‘rabbit caught in the headlight’ kind of vibe and they lose all sense of timing.”

However, as Jones points out not all bands are ill-prepared when they come into the studio and some have it down to a fine art. “Some bands come in and they are really together,” he says. “They decide exactly what songs they’re going to do and get straight down to it without messing about. They can then do three songs in a day which is the ideal to work towards.”

Jones advises bands to choose the songs they intend to record very carefully, as there is no going back once they’re down on tape.

“Bands are sometimes the worst in the world for picking the most commercial songs in their repertoires,” he says. “They should get feedback at gigs or from their mates and always pick the best song as the first one on the tape – as A&R men generally listen to about twenty to thirty seconds of it and if they’re not impressed, they’ll simply bin it.”

Over the past few years, the quality of home-recording equipment has changed the face of the recording industry. With digital and computer technology increasingly entering into the recording domain, it’s now possible to make professional quality recordings for relatively small amounts of money. This fact has not gone un-noticed by those involved in servicing the recording sector of the market.

“I think a lot of bands are more or less moving away from recording studios,” says Karl Hannigan of The Soundhouse, who specialise in hiring out recording equipment. “It’s actually quite exciting and it generates a great atmosphere when bands record at home. They’re familiarising themselves with multi-effects units, microphones and other equipment. Also, they’re not watching the clock and worrying so much about money. We have a whole pro-audio hire department and a lot of bands would hire out stuff for the weekend and do their recording at home. We hire out both four and eight-tracks with small multi-effects units from around £40 or £50.

“The beauty about it is,” he adds, “with our rehearsal facilities, we can give them a demo of their live recording, show them how to do it and then they can go home and try it out themselves.”

The Soundhouse, situated in Temple Bar, also hire out instruments, guitars, keyboards, multi-effects units, drums, drum machines – the complete range of equipment and also has a service department with four full-time service engineers. As Hannigan points out, this gives musicians on limited budgets access to a complete range of gear and equipment: “When bands are hiring out instruments, they can afford to experiment with different types of guitars – Strats, Les Pauls, Rickenbackers. We also have a 24 track digital facility ready to hire out at any time. From the pro area, right down to the bands doing their first demo tapes – we can help them out.”

The Studio Sound Store, at 8 Malpas Street, Dublin 8 was established two years ago to cater specifically for the recording requirements of the music industry and stocks a full range of recording, mixing and midi equipment. Jim Meade of Studio Sound Store strongly advises musicians to consider DIY recording.

“Any band who are looking to make recordings can save themselves an incredible amount of time and money by actually using a basic four-track or eight-track facility at home,” he says. “The point being, that if they are working with a basic machine they get used to the recording process. Where a lot of bands screw up is in their lack of familiarity with the whole process of recording. They might have spent months in a rehearsal studio getting their live thing together but when it comes to recording, they might realise where the flaws are. A home set-up is a very cost effective way of learning about the whole process and even if they want to go into a professional studio they will at least be familiar with how they sound and how they can achieve certain effects.”

Even for bands on minuscule budgets, a four-track cassette machine should not be beyond their combined resources and as Jim Meade points out, it can make a huge difference to their knowledge of recording. “Between four or five guys, £350 is a small investment and it gives them a real stab at the recording process. They’re literally, a sketch pad for songwriters and musicians,” he offers. “At the end of the day you can save a lot of time and money. It’s an expensive learning process to do it all in a studio. We’re talking about pre-production here and it means that when they go in to a professional studio and that red light goes on they can get straight down to it, having already done their homework.”

Once the songs are actually recorded and mixed and you have your DAT or quarter-inch master tape in your mits, there are a number of things you can do. Some bands might sit down and decide collectively that what they are listening to is indeed a load of rubbish and rapidly set about recording another tape – this time with the benefit of hindsight and hard won experience. But hopefully, this will not be the case and you will happily conclude that the world, or at least a small proportion of its population, will benefit immeasurably from hearing your artistic endeavours.

To do this you will need to have cassettes or CD’s made up from your master tape and this process is commonly called “duplication” (it’s all self-explanatory really!) Again there are a number of approaches to having copies of your meisterwork run off. The least expensive approach is to have cassettes made. This is fine, if all you want to do is sell your music at gigs but for promotional purposes, they are not all that useful. CD’s have become almost standard on radio stations and increasingly, A&R men prefer to be able to zap through the tracks quickly on a disc rather than having to cumbersomely fast-forward and re-wind while searching for that elusive piece of inspired magic which will induce them to advance vast amounts of money to the lucky band who manages to impress upon him or her.

A recent development that is becoming increasingly popular for bands who do not wish to have CD’s run off in bulk, is Recordable CD or (CD-R). The advantage with CD-R is that one-off copies can be produced for broadcast or promotional purposes while standard cassettes can be used for selling at gigs. The main disadvantage with CD-R is that it can be expensive if you find that you need more than a handful of them.

The good news is that CD production is getting cheaper all the time and it is now possible to have five hundred discs complete with labels and inlay cards produced for less than £1,000. This makes it entirely possible for a band to recoup some of their costs by selling CD’s at gigs or through local record shops, should they be willing to oblige.

Joe O’Reilly of APEX Duplication who specialise in cassette and CD production feels that bands should go for the minimum run of five-hundred CD’s, rather than use a half-dozen CD-R’s. “It’s quite easy to use up to two hundred CD’s purely for promotional purposes,” he says. “The rest they should be able to sell at gigs.”

Neil Gibbons of A to Z Music Services, who offer a complete manufacturing and printing service agrees. “The bulk of the initial cost of having CD’s done is in the mastering and repeat orders can be relatively cheap once that is out of the way.” Thus the possibility of producing an impresive looking CD-demo, which doubles as an indie-release becomes all the more compelling.

“One thing to watch out for when submitting master tapes for production,” Neil adds, “is with DAT masters there are two different formats, 44khz or 48khz and though we can work with either of them, they cannot be mixed on the same disc. Sometimes bands compile several different demos from various sources and mix the two onto the same DAT and this can cause problems.”

He also points out that most of the music industry use the Apple Mac as the standard format for printing labels and inlay cards and that artwork produced on a PC format can be difficult to transfer.

Brian Cloughley of KAO Infosystems advises bands to give themselves plenty of time when having CD’s produced. “Bands don’t realise just how much work goes into producing a CD,” he says. “It’s amazing how many bands come to us with their release date already set, with the launch party organised and invitations sent out! It can take up to ten working days to sort out the mastering, artwork, labelling and have the whole thing done properly. Sometimes they even forget to label DAT’s, which can involve further unnecessary delay and hassle.”

It’s important too for bands and artists to remember that once the master tape has been mixed, there is very little that can be done to cover up faults that may be found during final production. John Denton of Nimbus Manufacturing stresses that everything on the tape should be as complete as possible before it’s sent in for mastering. “It’s always difficult to rectify any deficiencies that might arise later on,” he says. “Lower quantities, rather than longer runs are more advisable too. The way the business is going, most bands or record companies go for short runs and then top up as they need them and very few take the risk of having tens of thousands of copies produced unless there is a guaranteed market.”

So, that’s the view of the experts. Take note and remember at least some of these points when you set about making your demo. It could be the first step on the road to a multi-platinum seller – or it could be your downfall.

Finally, remember to pay your bills on time. It may seem an obvious point to make but studios and others involved in the production process will not forget you in a hurry should you fail to keep to your financial commitments. You’ll discover that word travels fast and it’ll be difficult, if not impossible to find someone willing to do business with you again.

Whatever happens, remember, from small acorns big trees grow! (Yeah I know it’s a horrible cliché but it’s true!). Good luck.