Doing it For The Exposure... Do's & Don'ts!

'It's good exposure'. The single most horrible phrase in the music industry. It's the one people use when they've just asked you to spend thirty or forty hours working on a remix for no cash, or to trek down to London, DJ at their club night and then get the first train home in the morning, all without the promise of even the train fare. Nightmare, right? Well, it's not always a bad thing. So read on, as we take a closer look at this thorny issue.

If you just look at the principle, there's really nothing wrong with the idea of doing something for no upfront payment, if the fringe benefits (usually publicity) can be significant. Indeed, a lot of artists and labels spend good money trying to drum up publicity in a variety of ways. So spending your time and energy in return for exposure is, on paper, no worse than spending your hard-earned cash.

The problems come when 'the exposure' is out of proportion to the effort that you put in. This normally happens when a label or promoter don't want to pay someone. It can occasionally be tempting, but few landlords will accept exposure in lieu of rent, and it should really set alarm ringing. Why don't they want to pay? The most common reason is usually that they're just trying to bulk out a product in the hope of bringing in a spot of extra cash for themselves. As such, you need to get a little mercenary in your thinking.

What exactly is the exposure you'll be getting? Can you do better? If you're being asked by some no-mark label for free product, you'll likely resent the process, do a poor job, and they'll not bother promoting it too hard because they didn't have to invest in it. It's a lose-lose all round. Instead, try hitting up a label you like and asking to do a remix 'on spec'. This means that you work for free, with no obligation to the label to pay you or even use the mix, but that if they like it then hopefully you can work something out later. Most labels are open to the idea of free stuff so it's often possible to get some remix stems. This way you are much more motivated – it could be your big chance, imagine getting a remix out on this great label – so more likely to spend time and do a good job, which increases the chances of the label liking it and wanting to release it. A much better result than being remix 7 out of 8 on some tiny label that doesn't want to pay its artists.

Free tune giveaways can be useful too, but again, are best off done on your own terms. Far too often a free tune is given away via some small blog or inconsequential website and garners no attention. Disclosure, on the other hand, kickstarted their whole career with a free tune giveaway; managed via their Facebook page, it required a 'like' to be downloadable. As it was such a good track, it proved very popular; and several thousand 'likes' later they were suddenly flavour of the month. A much better result than a few thousand downloads from a magazine site where people may not even click through to their fan page.

DJ gigs are a little more complex – most nights will have plenty of budding DJ's queuing up to play, but you should still exercise a little discretion if you're asked to play for free. Again, what's in it for you? It doesn't have to be anything big - the promoter owing you a favour perhaps, or, and this would be the most common reason, the sheer fun of it. A good set in front of a decent crowd, with a few beers and some taxi money home can be one of the best nights out you can have. Conversely, playing a backroom to no-one on a broken P.A. isn't a good, or fun, use of your time. Anything involving travelling should, however, be treated with great caution. If you're spending money on trains and staying overnight, there's more to lose – so try to make sure you're getting something back in addition to playing out; for instance coverage on the promoter's blog or a mix on their radio show. It's not always plain sailing; your author recently spent a hefty wedge travelling across the country to play a free show for a famous fashion magazine, in return for a feature in the print mag. As soon as the gig was over, however, the magazine stopped returning calls. Very frustrating.

Overall, doing things 'for the exposure' can be a great way of putting your name out into the world, and getting yourself onto releases or into press that you would not otherwise get. But it can also be a great way of letting people casually rip you off, without getting much in return! So make sure that before you do anything in return for exposure, you're clear about what that exposure is going to be, how you're going to get it, and make sure that there isn't a better way of doing it yourself!

Fine Tune Your Perfection!

We always hear about the importance of getting tracks to sound just right - spending time in the mixdown and arrangement to ensure that every detail is perfect. Everyone wants their beats to sound as good as they possibly can, of course - but can this approach work to your detriment? Join us now as we take a look at the tricky area of being a perfectionist...

Conventional wisdom would have it that we should all take whatever measures we can to make the best tunes possible. It's a reasonable starting point, but of course the meaning of this changes depending on what kind of tunes you're writing. If you're working on clinical techy D&B then the goal will be highly polished mixdowns, space-age effects and searing bass. Artists like Teebee or Reso famously spend weeks on every tune, finely tweaking every detail until the mix shimmers. If you're writing loose, jazzy beats then the mixdown will be much further down the list of priorities - but you'll need to be pretty solid with the harmonies and chords, for instance. Someone like Hyetal, known for his more lo-fi approach, spends hours perfecting his aesthetic; making sure it's lo-fi but interesting. The hiss and grunge in his tracks is by no means accidental, or a result of poor technique. It too has been slaved over, layered, re-sampled, EQ'ed and filtered.

This much may seem obvious. But in fact it's something you need to keep in mind at all times - what is the point of the track?

So, we should spend ages on every track to achieve perfection, right? Well, this is where it gets complicated. Of course, if you can see an obvious flaw in your track, then fix it - a breakdown that doesn't really grab the attention like it should, a groove that just doesn't flow nicely, a click that shouldn't be there. But it doesn't always help to go looking for things to tinker with. Some tracks simply don't benefit from endless tweaking - if it's not a great track to begin with then the world's best mixdown won't cover that up. Equally, some tracks are simply beautiful in their simplicity, and trying to overproduce, or embellish the basic idea, just makes it worse.

Many producers and songwriters will insist that their best tracks came together in a day. It's true that inspiration can strike quickly but it doesn't negate hard work! Most of these producers will go on to say that they then spent another two days trying to add to the track before deciding - and this is the crucial point - that it was best in the original incarnation. So in these cases, perfectionism is manifested in knowing how to spot when a track is at its best, and knowing when to stop adding more parts.

Of course, spending a long time on a track has other downsides. For a start, it takes ages! This goes double for those of us with day jobs or kids, for whom a track can already take weeks anyway. In this case, a great way of identifying what really needs changing is to hear the track on a club soundsystem. Add the pumelling subs and crunching tops of a big system into the recipe and you'll find that most of the fine details in the track are somewhat obscured, leaving you no choice but to focus on the main issues of groove, structure and melody. Do they work? Does the melody come through? Does that bassline need to drop out for an extra 8 bars somewhere? Get these simple factors right and the rest of the track will fall into place fairly easily.

One last aspect of perfectionism is not in the melodies or mixdowns, but simply in the methods you use to produce. Legend has it that Burial took only a fortnight to write his iconic second album. But he didn't just sit down with a blank canvas and wonder what to do; over the preceding three years he had perfected his methods of production, so that he could write quickly within certain parameters. The layers of hiss, the pitched-down R&B vocal samples, the atmospheres, the garage swing, the unquantised beats - these were developed over a long time and contributed as much to the unique ambience of the album as the melodies and basslines themselves.

So perfectionism in production is actually much more than endless fine-tuning. It's about identifying the essence of what your track is about, and then working towards that - which could mean polishing up the mixdown, leaving the production raw, or adding a huge keyboard solo. But whatever it is, make sure you're improving the track and focusing on what's important!

Sign A Deal!

At some point, if things go well and you've been paying close attention to this blog, you may find that a label wants to sign you up for a single release. Often, they'll then send over a contract for you to sign. But what do all these terms mean? Everyone's heard about 'getting your lawyer to look over the contract' - but in the real world, no normal person is going to get a lawyer involved for a contract that might cover 300 vinyls and a handful of digital sales. These contracts are usually pretty perfunctory anyway, but there are a few things you need to know about. So let's take a look at some of the things you need to keep in mind as you scour that first contract!

First, there will be the 'term'. This is how long the contract will last (or to put it another way, how long the label will own your tracks). It's usually in perpetuity - that's forever - which is a touch harsh, we feel. Some more progressive labels these days use a term of something like 7 years, after which you'd be free to offer the tracks for free download on your own site, for instance. If this appeals, it might be worth asking to change the contract in this respect.

Then there may be some talk of 'an advance'. If there is, you're lucky - the advance is an endangered species and has been very rarely seen in the wild since about 2008. An advance is exactly what it suggests; you get some of your share of the profits up front. This is, of course, re-coupable - so if you get an advance of £200, then when the money comes in, the first £200 from your side will go to the label. If the record doesn't make that much profit, then technically you will owe the label the difference. In practice though, they can't charge you for it. An advance is definitely a positive - it shows the label has confidence in your release, and forces them to commit to working hard to make sure it sells enough to make the money back.

The 'option' is very important and commonly misunderstood part of some contracts, and will usually be used in a context like 'the option of two further singles'. This means that the if the label is happy with the release, they can exercise the option and extend the contract - thereby contracting you to deliver more singles (which they will also own). You would theoretically have no say in this. In practice, it's usually not as sinister as it sounds, many labels wouldn't exercise the option, and it's usually used by labels who want to develop with an artist, rather than constantly release different artists all the time. But it's important to check a contract to see if this clause is there, and to understand what it could mean for you. If you're not happy with it, ask for the clause to be removed.

Most contracts will also include the phrase 'the artist waives all moral rights'. This means that you waive your right to veto if, for instance, the label manages to get your track licensed to a cigarette advert or arms company. In practice, the number of arms companies that go around licensing underground dance tracks for their adverts is pretty much zero, and most dance tracks don't get licensed at all, let alone by morally suspect types. But again, if this bothers you, it's worth asking to remove it.

Publishing is occasionally mentioned in contracts, although it's more often a separate issue. But it's important. In short, when your track gets radio play, TV licenses, compilation use or anything like that, you're entitled to a royalty. A publisher rounds up all these royalties, takes a cut and passes the rest on to you. Often these days, especially with medium to large record labels, a label may want to sign the publishing on the track, as well as the recording rights. That's not necessarily a problem, but make sure you get some details on what their publishing arm is like - it should usually be 'sub-published' by a larger company who can handle the admin, and so on. There's nothing wrong with signing the publishing to your label, but make sure you're confident that they'll do a decent job!

Lastly, there's the issue of costs. In general, most dance music deals these days will just split the profit 50/50 after costs. That's about as fair as it gets - so just make sure that this is what is stated in the contract. We have seen a couple of contracts that split the cash before costs, and then take the costs out of the artist's side. This is old-school major label behavior, and not really suitable to today's landscape. If a label tries to pull this one on you, we'd suggest you politely take your tracks elsewhere!

One thing we've emphasised here is that you can always ask the label to change the contract. Many people, especially newcomers to the industry, are often too shy to ask for changes to the contract, worrying that it may somehow jeopardise their release. Not so - it just shows that you're keen to know what's going on, and paying attention. And anyway - if your tracks are genuinely good enough, there will be plenty of other labels who'd be happy to take them on should negotiations go sour.

As you can see, most contracts are actually fairly straightforward - the legal jargon can look impenetrable but in fact it's just wrapping up some quite simple concepts. So bear this in mind as you scan through that first contract from a new label, and don't be afraid to get in touch with them if you don't like the look of things. It doesn't need a lawyer after all!

Give Your Voice Some Room!

One step that many producers are keen to take at some point in their career is to work with a vocalist. It's something that can give tracks an extra edge, something that can add a catchy or memorable hook, and may even provide a touch more commercial potential. But writing tracks for vocalists can be very different from writing instrumentals. So what are the things you should look out for? Read on, as we take a deeper look...

The first thing to consider is that song structures for vocalists are going to be very different to normal electronic track structures. They may, in fact, even be actual songs! This is a far cry from the standard dance arrangement which usually goes something like 'intro, beats, breakdown, beats, outro'. Instead, you'll want to be thinking more about verses and choruses. Verses and choruses don't necessarily mean you need to be writing big soaring catchy pop melodies or anything like that. Listen to many of the big RnB or hip-hop tracks out there and you'll notice that the backing tracks often don't change a lot from the verse to the chorus - sometimes it's as subtle as a couple of extra percussion sounds or a pad line - but the point here is that it's sectional and pretty straightforward. Your author once sent a lovingly crafted backing track to a well known grime crew for a vocal - lovingly crafted to the extent that it had all sorts of interesting diversions, 4-bar bridges, little switch-ups and so on, and got back an email that basically said 'sorry, we didn't understand the structure, so here are 3 verses and 3 choruses'.

So the simplest thing is to aim for a structure based around verses and choruses that are 16 bars in length. Generally you can skip the extended beats intro - nobody wants to hear two minutes of kick drum while they're waiting for a vocal to come in - and the same goes for the outro too. If you need a DJ-mixable version you can do that later, once you've got the main track sorted. A short bridge section might help add variety if your vocalist is interested, but you should make sure that this or any other part of your track can be binned (or extended) if necessary. The main thing is the vocal, and you'll be working around it where possible. If your singer only wants an eight bar chorus, or no chorus at all, or has some other ideas entirely, you should be able to be flexible enough to do this.

Equally, since the main thing is the vocal, you should be leaving plenty of space for it in the arrangement. A super-busy percussion section, a huge lead synth, a massive 'filth' bassline - all of these are largely incompatible with a full vocal. That's not to say they have no place in your track - you just need to be careful of having things competing for space. You could try having a very simple chorus vocal which could sit on top of a filthy bassline, and then drop out the bassline (or Low-pass filter it) to focus on the vocal for the verses, for instance. But be aware that a lot of those little details which in an instrumental tune add a touch of interest for the listener, can simply distract from a full vocal.

When writing synth lines and melodies then, don't be afraid to put them in your original idea, but with a view to reducing or reworking them later. They can often give a singer ideas for melodies or harmonies - but then when you record the vocal, they may be masked by the very vocal they inspired. That's fine - don't try to mash everything into the mixdown all front and centre, you can chop them so that they simply accent or answer certain vocal phrases.

The summary of all this is that you should be thinking about the singer and the vocal they will eventually provide, all the way through the writing process. Writing a full track and hoping to graft a vocal on at the end will usually end in tears - you need to consider what the vocalist needs, what the vocal will mean for your arrangement, and how you may have to compromise certain aspects of the track to really make the vocal work. Flexibility is key. If you need to change the track around once you've got the vocal then do it - nothing should be set in stone!

We've covered producing and mixing vocals in a previous article, but if you write well for a vocal, then half your job is done already. So why not take the plunge - get in touch with a local singer, borrow a microphone off a friend and get writing. Who knows where it could take you!

Stay Focussed!

A common problem in the tracks of novice producers - and it's one that is manifested in a couple of ways - is that the tune lacks any kind of clear focus. Which is unfortunate, because often there's a great track in there just waiting to be unleashed. So how can you avoid this fate, and really let your tracks shine? Read on, as we suggest ways of taking a step back to see your tune more clearly...

It's a bit like taking a photo. You can point your camera at the most beautiful landscape, but if it's out of focus, or your brother's clapped-out motor is stuck in the foreground, it won't make for much of a picture. All the ingredients are there, but the end result doesn't quite work. And so it is with music - you might have a great groove, and loads of superb musical ideas, but unless you arrange and mix the tune to show off these strengths in the best possible light, you may just end up with a mess.

So the key is to identify the best parts of your track, and push them forward into the spotlight. If they're strong enough, they will carry the vibe by themselves. Cluttering up the arrangement will only distract listeners from the main theme of the tune, or worse, obscure it completely.

Consider Todd Terje's track 'Ragysh'. One of the standout tracks of 2011, it is defined by a huge breakdown, and runs to nearly 9 minutes in total. But there are essentially only 3 sounds in the whole track, plus the simplest of drum beats. No big risers or snare rolls in the breakdown, no crazy FX or edits, no acid line or ravey strings to bolster the track in case it gets dull. It just has strong melodic ideas shown off to their fullest, and the discipline to leave them alone.

At the opposite end of the dance music spectrum there's the junglist DJ Die, famous for his rollers. He's said in interviews that his motto is 'don't over season the soup' and it shows in his tracks; usually a beat, simple bassline and couple of samples for ear candy. He identifies the essential elements and pares the track down to just these - and the results are incredibly effective.

So you need to take this into account when you're writing. Don't fall into the slacker's trap of just doing the bare minimum - make sure there are plenty of ideas in your beat before you start arranging it, and then you can pick the strongest ones, discarding most of the others. (If you really like the sounds you're losing, you can always use them in the next track!) Start thinning things out, muting channels to see what works on its own and what's just filling out the spectrum. It should be possible to get down to the essence of what the track needs to be about.

You should then build the arrangement around these important areas; dropping other elements out when your main themes come in. Indeed it's often advisable to drop one major element out of the mix when another comes in, to let the listener focus more clearly on the new factor. If the main idea on it's own doesn't quite seem to cut it sonically, then instead adding another element, consider reinforcing it with EQ, adding some FX or perhaps subtly doubling it with a synth line playing the same pattern. Often the added sonic weight will work better than cluttering up the mix with more details.

Your mixdown process should be tailored to similar ends. Anything that isn't the main focus of the track can be pretty low in the mix, and it should lean towards the main idea - just listen to the average Rihanna track for instance, and see how incredibly loud the vocal is mixed. Many novices mix vocals way too quiet, and the vocal sits amongst the various elements of the track, instead of taking pride of place at the head of the mixdown.

The same goes for EQ - while your main idea should sound full, the supporting cast of your track can be whittled down to just what is needed. It's often advisable to use subtractive EQ on some of the background sounds so that they don't clash with your main theme. If you're not sure how to start, try using a frequency analyser on the main element of the track to see where it sits in the frequency spectrum, then doing a gentle EQ cut on those frequencies in some of the other sounds.

It's not easy to stay on top of all this as you're writing your tune. But it's essential to make sure that the essence of your track is not lost in amongst all the things you put in to support it! So make sure that at every stage of the writing process, you keep asking yourself - what is the focus of this track? Is it being pushed front and centre, so that it's the thing people will remember? Do these other parts really help, and do what they're supposed to do? Make it into a habit, and you'll soon find it becomes second nature. So keep writing, and stay focussed!

How To Find Your Production Style!

One of the biggest difficulties for a lot of producers, especially those who are just starting out, is finding and developing a recognisable style of their own. How do you get there? Where does this style come from?

Styles don't just develop randomly - they are usually a combination of influences and borrowed ideas from a range of music. It can be deliberate or subconscious, but it doesn't happen without plenty of creative input from somewhere. So let's take a look at how you can take influence from other artists, scenes and genres without stepping into those dangerous territories of pastiche, or worse, just plain rip-off!

It's all very well being a scene player - as we've outlined on this blog before, writing tracks that fit neatly into a particular scene can get you a fair level of recognition in that scene - but to really stand out you need to bring something else to the table. This is what the best producers do, and you can afford to be quite open about it, so long as you approach things in an artistic way. Consider the early tracks of bass music mainstay Untold - tracks like 'Stop What You're Doing' were a welcome breath of fresh air in a scene that was looking for new sounds, as they used huge bass stomps in place of kick drums. Untold himself was very open in interviews about how this was strongly influenced by Wiley's early productions, but what made it fresh was that he took this technique and incorporated it into a dubstep-inflected scene, combining the two to bring a whole new take on an existing style. As it was also extremely well-executed, it immediately catapulted him up into the ranks of respected producers.

A 'pastiche' is copying a style completely - take the melodic styles, the same kind of synth patches, the same drum machines or patterns, and write an original track. It's not plagiarism, as you've written an original piece, but people could easily think it actually came out years ago, when that style was originally popular. Writing a pastiche is often actually a lot of fun, and you can learn a lot from it, as you try to copy production techniques and figure out how they were done, but it will never excite people in the same way as something genuinely new.

So, a better way to think about incorporating other styles into your beats, is to take what you've learned about these genres and bring it into your existing tracks. This way you can take a signature sound from a genre and bring it wholesale into your own stuff, without compromising your identity. Basement Jaxx are a classic example; their tracks pull in samples and riffs from latin, soul and early 80's boogie records all the time, but since they are then putting these in the context of a UK house music sound, the result is something fresh and original.

Or take dBridge, who saw the sparse minimalism of early dubstep and started using those clipped halfstep beats in his drum and bass tracks. It was a straightforward concept, splicing together two existing genres, but it was a fresh new sound, and simply by dint of being one of the first people to do it properly, he was rightly hailed as one of the originals in the scene.

It's something you hear constantly in the evolving field of dance music. Right now producers across the globe are taking footwork and juke sounds and throwing them into bass music structures; veteran dubstep producers are taking their soundsystem roots and using them in house tracks; classic Chicago house drum machine beats are suddenly all the rage amongst UK bass music producers.

So instead of just waiting for your productions to develop their own signature style, take them by the scruff of the neck and make one! Draw on that love you've always had for salsa music, or classic New York house, or experimental noise, and start referencing it in your garage, jungle or hip hop tunes. Take influence from wherever you can, and don't worry about being too obvious – just make something new. Be bold, make a statement!

Layering Synths For Bigger Sounds

Are your synth lines not really cutting the mustard? Does the top end lack a little fizz, or do you find the lows to be a touch inconsistent? Then perhaps you should indulge in a spot of layering....

When people discuss 'layering' up synth lines, they're usually talking about getting the same MIDI part playing on two or more synths at the same time. There are plenty of reasons why you might want to do this, and a few why you wouldn't, and that's what we'll be examining here.

The first, and arguably most common, reason for layering up your synths is that you want a bigger sound. If your lead line isn't quite cutting through the mix, then try doubling it with a fizzy sound, high-pass filtered such that it doesn't clash too much with the main line (at least above 1 - 2kHz). In general you should be looking for a fairly subtle effect; take a simple synth patch, blend it in very quietly, and make sure it's doing only what's required. The majority of the character of the sound should be coming from the main synth patch; if you start trying to get several big and crazy synth lines playing at the same time you'll only end up in mixdown hell as you try to compress, sort out phases and automation and volume on several synths simultaneously. To this end, don't be afraid of using presets or simple sounds for any synth layers that will secondary to the main sound, although many producers like to stay away from presets for reasons of originality, here you're just using it as a tool, to bulk up another sound. It's the main patch people will be listening to, so just grab something that works and move on!

Similarly at the low end, many big synth patches make great bass sounds, but don't quite cut it for sub-bass. In this case, try high-passing your synth at something like 150Hz (or perhaps even up to 200Hz if it's getting muddy in your mixdown) and layering in a straight sine wave for the sub bass. Again, simpler is better, and a sine wave is perfect for sub bass. Be sure to make the volume envelope match that of the main synth (or at least make sure it will sound good on a system, by giving it a touch of decay and release), add a touch of compression and you're good to go. It really doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.

When layering a new synth line to complement an existing patch, you need to make sure it matches your main patch in a number of ways; chiefly volume, space and filtering. If your main patch filters up and down, make sure your layers do likewise to avoid leaving them high and dry (try sending them all to a buss and filtering that for simplicity). Send your layers to the same reverbs for consistency, and if your main patch moves around the stereo field, then ensure your layers do too. If the volume of the main patch changes, then reflect this in the layers. Paying close attention to all these points will help the layers blend in with the main patch much more than anything else. So many forum heads will insist that you jump straight in with frequency analysers and multiband compressors, this is a tricky and complicated way of solving a problem that can often be avoided!

On the subject of filtering, one common reason for requiring layering is that when you change filter levels, the weight of the sound can change with it. For instance if you've got a chunky bass sound with a resonant low-pass filter on it, then when the filter cutoff is at a low frequency, the resonance will give you a boost at those low frequencies. But then when you turn up the cutoff, the resonant boost moves, great for giving that acid adrenaline feel, but it doesn't help when you wanted to keep the low-end weight. So in this case, it's often helpful to double the synth patch with itself, and have one patch with the filter down, low passed and unchanging. Then high-pass the other, and you can alter the filter as much as you like, without affecting the weight of the patch.

Another area where layering synths can come in extremely handy is with samples, especially melodic samples taken off an old vinyl. Typically, these may be badly recorded, lacking in high or low end (or both) but will usually have loads of character. So in cases like these, you can use the same techniques, get an unobtrusive synth patch, programme it to match the sample, and fold it into the mix as subtly as you can to fill out the sound. With a little tweaking, you'll end up with a full-spectrum sample that sounds crisp and finely EQ'd but that still keeps all the character of the original.

The possibilities of layering up your synth sounds go well beyond the scope of this article, but this should give you a few ideas on how to proceed! The golden rules are to keep it simple, make sure you program the layers in detail to keep them true to the main patch, and watch out for clashing or overlapping frequencies. Once you've taken heed of these, feel free to layer away....

Get The Web To Work For You!

Last week, we brought you the first part of this look at how artists and musicians can manage their web presence to be as effective as possible. There are a whole wealth of services out there to use - many of them for free. But once you're signed up, up how can you ensure that they serve your needs as well as possible, without eating into that precious music-making time? There's no point having a strategy for promoting your music if it means you don't get a chance to write any! So read on, as we suggest a few hints for getting maximum results from your web exposure...

The first thing is to make sure that prospective fans can find what they want. If you imagine that you're checking out a new band's website, you don't want to read their biography first - you want to hear some tracks. That's the important thing. So to that end, make sure you have obvious links to where people can hear your tunes, and then where they can buy them. Make sure also that they're your best recent tunes - this sounds obvious but so many artists have just a few tracks on their Soundcloud, all from over a year ago. This just makes you look like you've quit!

This point is key - however many sites and accounts you have, you must make sure they're all up to date. If that means cutting back to just a couple, then do so, otherwise it could just be counterproductive. If someone's looking to buy your latest release, and one of your sites says you haven't released anything in 8 months, then you've just lost a sale. If you don't have time to keep everything up to date, then just cut things down a bit - only keep as many sites as you have time for.

Similarly, although it's possible to upload your tracks to any one of a number of sites - Last FM, Pandora, etc, it's arguably not the best use of your time. You could spend weeks making sure you're on every site possible, but so long as you have a good selection of work available in a few key locations, your time will likely be better spent honing your tracks instead. People will find them if they're good enough!

The whole point of all these sites is to make life easier for you. It is not, as a rule, to generate fans. There is only one thing that will guarantee fans come to your page, and that's good music. It's a cliche, but it's also a liberating one – so long as the basics are there (people can hear your music, get in contact with you, find out how to buy your tracks) then you can spend the rest of your time actually writing and recording tracks!

That said, play to your strengths. If you find social networking difficult and tedious, then just do the essentials - news updates, new tracks etc. If you are a natural chatterbox, then indulge it - the more retweets you can get on Twitter, the more comments on your Facebook posts, the more people will see you on their timelines and the more exposure you'll get.

To this end, smartphones are a revelation. With phone apps for Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud and more, you can update your networks while you're on the bus to work or away for lunch. Apps like Seesmic Ping can synchronise all your social networks, so one status update can be pushed through all your sites, pages and blogs at once. This means you can get more time to spend on your tracks - the important stuff.

There's a lot of talk about things 'going viral' - and once again, this something that can only be achieved if you have cracking content. Videos, jingles, mashups - whatever it is, the most important factor is that you work hard at it and ensure that it's as good as possible. That sounds obvious, but in all the commotion about how to maximise your crowd engagement, it can often be overlooked! Just as you'll never have a number one hit simply by connecting with your fans on Facebook, so your music and videos will only go viral if they're good enough and if people want to share them. One band who have made their videos viral is American rock band Ok Go!

This doesn't negate the whole process of finding fans online, however. The concept of 'web presence' can also include being an active and useful participant on a forum - the respect you can build up will translate into people taking you more seriously when you have something to promote - for instance the chief engineer at one mastering company is a keen contributor on a certain music forum, constantly offering technical advice to other users. It's won him a lot of friends and a lot of business.

Overall then, getting your web presence right is crucial - it's your method of converting curious visitors into fans, and of keeping existing fans up to date with what you're doing. But it's also something that should facilitate your musical efforts. No-one gets into a band or artist because of their fun and slick internet profile, and as such you shouldn't devote too much effort to acquiring fans through the internet. But you certainly do need to make sure that if someone lands on one of your profiles, the route from there to listening to your tracks, buying them, or booking you for a set is as simple as possible. So make sure your web presence is complete, simple, and manageable, and then get on and make it work for you!

Get Your Music Stuck in The Web!

For some of us, it doesn't seem long since the cutting edge of musician's web promotion consisted largely of starting up a Myspace page, chucking a couple of tracks on there, and then furiously adding friends. It's moved on a lot since those heady days; the options available to the average producer or musician now are dizzying. But what's the best way of keeping on top of things? Which tools are really useful, and how can you use them to your advantage without losing hours each week to the social network sites? Let's take a look in a little more depth...

Facebook has been the undisputed champion of social networking over the last few years. It has the most users, the highest view counts, and carries unarguable weight in marketing your stuff online. Since the relatively recent launch of 'Facebook Pages', it has been even more useful, as you can set up a one-stop shop where fans can find biography, booking information and all the rest of it.

So there's step one - set up your Facebook page. Make sure it's clear, has all the information people want, and has links to places where people can hear, and buy, your music. You can add apps like Bandpage, which is a great tool to enhance your page. On this you can embed tracks from your Soundcloud page, pull in your gig details from a number of sites, and generally collate everything a fan could want. The downside is that as Facebook changes constantly, it can stop apps working so well, and the recent switch to Timeline pages has left many apps consigned to a small icon at the edge of the page.

So think back to the days of Myspace - it was once the biggest music networking site, and now it's nowhere. The same will eventually happen with Facebook too. Already, musicians and marketing people are concerned over the use of 'Edgerank' and 'promoted posts'. It's too deep to go into here, but the upshot is that as Facebook is now so popular for marketing, sometimes your status updates will be crowded out of your fans' busy newsfeeds by other people's updates. In turn, you can pay money to get your status updates onto more newsfeeds - but only people who have already 'liked' your page. It's a tricky problem, but the concept of paying to reach people who are already fans has many industry commentators up in arms. It will be interesting to see how it pans out over the next few months, but in the meantime, just remember that you may need to shift your web-focus elsewhere at some point.

A suitable place would be to your own website. Start one now - it doesn't have to be an all-singing, all-dancing affair - just a simple blog site with a customised template will do. Make sure it has links to your main pages on the web, and is updated with your discography and significant news. Otherwise, it can be a very basic site; for smaller artists most people engage through social networks anyway. All it needs to do is provide a central hub for your other web engagements. Tumblr is handy and easy to use, while Posterous has an ingenious interface where you can add blog posts simply by sending an email. For the non-technical, it's a revelation. Both feature 'auto-post' functions, which will spin your content out through your Facebook and Twitter accounts too.

Soundcloud is still one of the best sites for getting your tracks heard; it has a large community and is easy to use. Make sure your tracks are embeddable; this way, people can put them on their blog sites but you'll still get the play counts.

Bandcamp is increasingly popular as an alternative to Soundcloud, especially among independent and self-releasing artists. It offers embeddable players, tracks to stream and download, or you can sell tracks, albums and physical merchandising direct from the site, taking money into your paypal account. It lacks the graphical waveforms of Soundcloud that so many producers love, and also the strong community so crucial for fans to share and discover new music, but the site is improving constantly and is well worth a look, especially for self-releasing artists. Don't forget to check out Official.fm too though. Recently revamped and re-launched, it's now setting itself up as a serious competitor to Soundcloud. If you're a DJ, Mixcloud is the simplest and best site for hosting mixes.

Songkick has also been making waves recently, and it too is getting more useful all the time. Primarily, it's a site where you can create and manage your events - gig and tour details. So artists can keep fans up to date, and fans can buy tickets to events. What makes it more useful though, is the integration with other platforms. If you have an account with Soundcloud, Bandpage, Spotify or many others, they can automatically pull your tour details from the Songkick page - so you only have to put the shows in once.

We still haven't mentioned Twitter - everyone knows what this is, but it can be a highly useful tool for communicating with your fans, getting information out into the world and even networking with other acts - if you need to get tracks to someone you can often just tweet at them to get an email address. It's surprisingly effective for this!

So, with all these sites, you'll essentially have something that is less of a website, and more of a web eco-system. But what should you do with it? We'll run down the strategies of how to create an efficient, useful, and stress-free online existence next week! So make sure you've got the basics sorted for now, and then join us again for some tips on how to use them.....

How To: Finish Your Tracks!

A skill that is often overlooked by many aspiring producers, and it's a skill that is seriously under-rated by too many, is simply getting tracks finished. So many people end up with a hard drive full of loops, half-tunes, ideas and sketches, but all too few full, finished tracks. Sound familiar? Don't worry if so - it's a stage most people have had to work through at some point in their production lives. So let's go in a bit deeper on this issue, and look at some ways to make sure you get more finished tracks under your belt!

Many producers who start to write beats have a certain idea in mind - that once you get to a certain level of technical proficiency, the rest is easy. Your tunes pretty much write themselves; you get your 8 or 16 bar loop sorted, a couple of sick synth noises going on, and somehow after that, everything basically falls into place.

It's a nice dream, but unfortunately, a dream is all it is. The uncomfortable truth is that, just as with every other aspect of production, finishing a tune takes work and plenty of practise. It's a skill, and needs to be learned just as much as compressing your drum buss or writing a harmony. There's no shortcut!

So how do we go about getting over this hurdle and convert those ideas and sketches into fully formed works of electronic art? Well, first of all you have to change your mindset somewhat - and set as your goal the completion of a full track. It sounds obvious, but many forget that although firing up the 16-bar loop and muting/adding parts is loads of fun to jam with, all you're really doing is admiring the potential that your embryonic tune has. You're not actually writing, and you won't end up with a full track any time soon. At this stage, you're really only a third of the way through the production process. It's time to get on with the hard graft - but don't worry, you'll soon learn to enjoy it!

So you start tracking out the arrangement, and this is where so many people come a cropper. Remember the new mindset - forget the art, what does it need to do? It needs an intro; perhaps a breakdown, a main drop, and so on. Listen to tunes in your genre and count out their structure – how long is a typical intro, how does a drop develop? Don't worry about copying parts of a structure for now; the important part is that you work through the process to completion: anyway, if you listen to enough tracks in your chosen style you'll quickly see that most structures are pretty generic. Just the fact that you're writing your own beats and melodies, and producing in your own style will give it a distinctive signature. If you really want to get arty then later you can start experimenting with crazy intros, tempo changes and whatnot - but get the basics down and get into the habit of finishing tracks first!

Important things to consider are factors such as, when do elements come in or drop out? Fills? FX? Switch-ups? A good track will use plenty of techniques to keep the ear engaged, and let the music progress without becoming boring. It's a good idea to have some production 'tools' to hand here. For instance, a sample pack of risers and whoosh noises to drop into a progressive house track to keep the momentum up. Or a couple of glitch/slicer plugins if you're writing psytrance; maybe a sampler instrument full of bass drops that you can throw into your D&B tune for half a bar here or there. Often these details can make a big difference, and take a simple track from being boring to being just 'stripped back'! As you keep finishing tracks, you'll also start to build up a repertoire of tricks and techniques that can help at this stage - practise is key.

The other crucial part is to distance yourself from what you're writing (it's that mindset thing again). It's only natural that you'll like whatever you happen to come out with; but is it actually good? Be brutal with yourself here. It's often a good idea to get a friend round to check out the tune at this point; it makes you listen to the track from a very different perspective. If you find yourself justifying it, saying things like 'this part really gets going in a second' then you perhaps need to add some extra interest at that point.

The important thing though, is just to get through the process, sign the track off as 'done' and move onto the next thing. Don't spend weeks tweaking and tweaking to get everything perfect - there isn't a producer in the world who doesn't look back at old tracks and see things that couldn't be improved. The more tracks you finish, the easier it becomes to see what a track really needs to do, and the easier the process becomes. So load up that unfinished jam, settle in for the long haul and get finishing!

Score A Hit On A Budget!

Music production has always been a great hobby for those who like their toys and gadgets. So much hardware, so many classic pieces of kit to get your hands on! Every month, the magazines are full of reviews of beautiful new gear and plugins that offer the finest in audio processing - with price tags that offer the finest in wallet-bothering panic. It's easy to get sucked into the idea that if you can just get one of these babies, your production problems will be solved - but that's rarely true, and in these times of recession, finding the cash is harder than ever! So until you win the lottery, here are some tips on how to improve your tunes, get more inspiration and beef up your production on a budget more suited to these straightened times...

Cheap Hardware

The opposite of what you see in the magazines! Get down to the local second-hand music shop and see what they've got. The weirder the better - a random old bass guitar amplifier is great for running your drum track through to get a crunchy lo-fi edge. Guitar pedals offer a wealth of options - distortion and overdrive for those filthy basses, delays for pads and drones, envelope filters for inspiring new sounds. If you find something really strange looking, pounce - it could be the thing that gives your tracks that distinctive sound you've always been looking for! If not, you can always put it on Ebay and make your money back...

Get A Microphone

Great microphones don't come cheap, but decent ones can. Companies like Red5 Audio can supply surprisingly good condenser and dynamic microphones for less than £50, leaving you with enough cash left over to buy a couple of cheap shakers and tambourines. Then you can get busy making your own unique percussion loops, start recording some crazy found sounds, or even get a local singer or MC in to start getting some decent vocals into your tracks. It doesn't need to be a full vocal - just start making some loops and chops!

Digging In The Crates

Go and buy some music. That's what this one is all about - as a music fan you probably do that anyway but by broadening your horizons you can really get some fresh ideas going. If you're a vinyl junkie then get down to the local second hand shop and start digging, especially in genres you generally don't listen to. If you don't do wax then just get on Amazon and buy yourself a couple of those 3-disc compilations - Greatest Motown Hits, Latin Jazz For Beginners, Blaxploitation Soundtrack Classics - anything like that. This way, not only are you exposing yourself to a new genre which may give you some new ideas, but also giving yourself the chance to learn more about how great music works. What makes those Motown records so catchy? How did those soundtrack guys get such an exciting sound out of just a few violins? By learning from the best, you can discover new musical techniques to take into your own productions. And even better, you also get a stack of classic tunes to sample!

Knowledge Is The Key

Speaking of learning, one of the best things you can do to improve your music-making skills is to take some music instrument lessons. Whether it's guitar, piano, or anything else doesn't matter so much (although of course brushing up on your keyboard skills will help no end when jamming out riffs on the MIDI controller keyboard) – just learning more about the nuts and bolts of music will give you an insight into the basics of melody, harmony and how things fit together. Fifty quid won't get you to Carnegie Hall, but it should be enough for a few weeks of 30 minute lessons. Combine that with some daily practise and you'll be surprised how much difference it can make...

Free Plugins

Apparently, there are even some free software plugins for your DAW out there! OK, so this isn't going to be news to many, but there really are some gems to be had out there. From old favourites like the Kjaerhus processing suite and Yohng's W1 Limiter to newer pretenders like Scythe, which is a DAW port of the popular iPad synth Grainbender, you'll always be able to find something that fits neatly with your requirements. Check out our new Plugins site where you can get top plugin Oscillator for FREE! Grab it here.

Hopefully these tips will help even the most cash-strapped producers out there, and remind us that you don't need the best, most expensive kit to write great music!

Get Your Beats Jumpin!

One mixing and production technique that will be present on the vast majority of records you own, especially those recorded in bigger studios with professional engineers, is that of buss compression. It can be hugely useful, both from an artistic and an engineering viewpoint - whether you want to go for that big, pumping, filtered disco sound, or just make sure your track is as fat as possible, buss compression can do wonders for your mix. But can anyone get involved? And how do you get started anyway? Let's look a little deeper....

The pumping disco-house sound, as pioneered by the likes of Daft Punk and their French cohorts, is all about buss compression. A classic example would be 'So Much Love To Give' by Thomas Bangalter and DJ Falcon. You can hear in this track how different everything sounds when the kick comes in. There is life in the the backing samples and loops when the kick drum is not playing - they have headroom and dynamic range. Then the kick thumps in, clobbering a compressor that sits across the whole buss, and the sheer volume of it forces everything else out of the way when the volume reduction kicks in.

To hear this technique really used to its full potential, listen to 'Barbara Streisand' by Duck Sauce. No matter what your opinions on the track itself, the buss compression is something to behold; it uses the compression and release technique outlined above, but also manages to achieve transients on the backbeat to give definition and a crisp top end. This is through a clever combination of a good buss compressor (perhaps the Waves SSL or UAD 4K for instance), and timing – adjust the attack of the compressor very slightly so that it allows some of the transient on your clap or snare through, and consider pulling the note early so that it has slightly more time before the compressor slams the door on it.

Buss compression isn't all about getting a massive house track pumping though. You can use it on any style of music as a central part of your mixdown. Many experienced engineers will put a compressor on their master buss before they even start mixing down. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it is common practise in many studios. It has many advantages - mixing through a compressor means you need much less compression at the channel stage, and thus can bring a mix together much more quickly. It's also often appropriate for dance and rock music in particular (anything with a strong groove and a lot of energy) - as it changes the way you approach a mix, focusing more on drums and bass, then fitting the other elements in around them. For very audible examples, check out some of the late 90's and early '00s techno releases by the likes of Ben Sims and Marco Carola; the intense percussion sounds bounce off each other as they jostle for space, constantly butting up against the threshold of the compressor. It creates an exciting and lively overall sound, less controlled than compressing everything individually.

It needs to be said here that this isn't something you can just try occasionally - it takes time and practise to get used to mixing through a compressor. To get you started, a general rule of thumb for compression settings would be a short attack (less than 10ms), medium-long release (maybe 200ms depending on the tempo of your track, longer if it's a slow track) and a threshold that takes off 3 or 4dB. Put the compressor on before you start mixing, and then don't take it off again!

Your first few mixdowns using this technique may not come off well, but practise makes perfect - it's a little like learning a new set of monitor speakers. Reference your mix often, take plenty of breaks, and persevere to be sure of really getting a handle on it!

Buss compression is a useful tool for all engineers, and you can get on board with it too - it just takes a little time and a good quality compressor. So get yourself a decent plugin, open up that mixdown, and see if you can't make those tracks jump out of the speakers even more!

Stir Some Syncopation Into Your Mix!

Syncopation is one of the basic ingredients of rhythm. It's what makes the difference between a straightforward,stomping beat, and something funky, fluid and interesting.But what is it? Can anyone get in on the act? And can you use it for other things than drums too? Let us shed some light...

Syncopation is, basically, just putting things in the gaps between beats. But not just on 8ths; as this can sound pretty straight too; so use 16th note shuffles to accentuate and emphasise the main beats. The simplest way is to try a quiet snare drum (known as a 'ghost note') just before or after a main kick or snare. See how it leads into, or jerks out of, the beat? It's a technique that most hip-hop or jungle producers will be familiar with already. You can enhance the feel of this even further; for instance if it's a snare preceding a kick, try delaying the kick by half a beat. Now the main beat is displaced by an 8th note too; the listener's attention is grabbed further by the fact that it wasn't where they were expecting. You're creating a 'tension and release' moment.

This technique is common in breakbeat-based music, but that doesn't mean it can't work in house and techno too. A common rhythm heard in Detroit techno, used by the likes of Juan Atkins, is pulling the 4th kick of the bar earlier by a 16th note. This adds a degree of funk to the beat, and sets it apart from the standard 4/4 stomp - but when teamed with the usual hats and claps can still keep the steady groove of house and techno. This kick pattern is also the bedrock of Baltimore Club music, as pushed by Scottie B et al. But it can be switched up - you can pull any one of the kicks off the beat, to add some shuffle to your track while still leaving it straight enough to play in a regular house set.

Ragga and dancehall music is very syncopated; to the point where you could argue it's just a polyrhythm (but that's a discussion for another day). The beat is usually sub-divided into lengths of three 16ths, or if you're looking at it on a grid format, it hits on 1, 4, and 7 (and then repeats on 9, 12 and 15). It makes for a very distinctive groove; team it with a kick on all the fours and you'll have an instant African vibe (or indeed UK Funky).

This isn't all about drums though - you can syncopate anything to make it sound more interesting. To take the dancehall-style rhythm above, a popular groove in dubstep is to have the classic halfstep drumbeat, with a sub-bass hitting on every three 16th notes. Or leads and main riffs - see Redlight's recent hit 'Get Out My Head', where the piano chords switch from being on the beat for the first half of the bar, to a syncopated rhythm in the 2nd half of the bar.

Anything you have that falls on a straight rhythm, you can give consideration to pulling it back and forth off the beat to make it more interesting; as countless jazz and blues masters have said over the years, it's all about the spaces in between the beats. And if you can make these spaces surprising, attention-grabbing, or even just more varied, you'll be half way to making your track a much more interesting listen overall. Whether it's a synth arpeggio, sub bass thump or brass stabs, the rhythm can make all the difference.

So work as hard on the rhythms of your track - from drums and bass to pianos and lead lines - as you do on the melodies and harmonies, and you'll soon find that syncopation can bring life to loops that previously sounded dull and predictable. And you'll be a lot closer to having a groove that's ready to make into a full arrangement!

Fire Up Your Beats!

After the kick drum, in dance music the most important part of your beat is arguably the 'backbeat'. This is what falls on beats two and four of the bar (while beat one is called the 'downbeat') and usually features a snare, clap or similar. Getting the backbeat right can really enhance the character and groove of a good beat, but so many people fail to maximise the potential, opting for a dull, or rigidly quantised sound. So let's consider some of the options you can use to make sure your beat really shines...

First though, there's the issue of what you need your backbeat to do. In general, the bigger your tune sounds, the less room for manoeuvre you have in this area. A raging DnB or dubstep tune will need something correspondingly massive to cut through the mix, and thus often make use of what is known to many as the 'Pendulum Snare'. This is basically a rock-sounding snare with loads of weight, a big EQ boost around 200Hz, next to nothing in the way of transients and perhaps a gated reverb to boot. It's not particularly interesting, or original, but it certainly will dominate a busy mixdown.

If you can afford more space in your mix then you'll have a lot more options. Claps are a lot of fun; get hold of a good sample pack (or even take a mic and record some yourself) and get them into a sampler. Make sure they're not just the standard drum machine jobs - organic, live sounding claps are the way forward here. Now stack up three or four or more to all play at the same time, and start to tweak the timing - pull a couple of them early, before the beat, and have a couple starting a touch later. Combine this with some tight reverb and subtle panning (or a slight stereo-spread plugin effect) and you'll have a clap that really catches the ear, with a fresh live sound, ideal for hip hop, funk, deep house and more. Check some early 2000's era Timbaland beats if you want to hear how this technique can really be used effectively.

Rimshots are another essential tool. The classic Roland 505 rimshot sound is a staple of garage records, but the rimshot has many other uses in dance music. For instance, it can be pitched down and used atop a kick drum, to give a crisp, woody sound that emphasises the beat without jumping out of the mix - as DJ Sneak shows on many of his house tracks. The short duration of a rimshot means it's great for adding dynamics to a lifeless sound - if a snare sounds overly crunchy and flat, try high-passing a rimshot and layering it on top to get a transient on the snare without altering the character too much.

Another way of making the backbeat stand out, especially in a crowded mix, is to layer some finger snaps on top. These can be high-passed at a fairly high frequency so that they don't clash with the main character of the snare or clap, for instance 3kHz, and when combined with some careful reverb can give an impression of space and definition. Layer up two or three such samples to add interest, and again, adjust the timing of each so that they spread out across the beat and give a looser, funkier feel.

Of course, there are plenty of other sounds you can use to make your backbeat distinctive in a busy drumbeat; a vocal sound (just a syllable, like an 'uh' sound for instance), a metallic hit with a slapback delay, the sound of breaking glass - the world is your oyster. The more unusual you can make the sound, the easier it will be to make the mixdown work too - as the texture will stand out naturally, without having to compete for volume.

In all of these examples, playing with the timing and pulling your samples off the quantise grid is essential. It can totally change the feel of a beat, and you'll be surprised how far off the grid you can come before it sounds wrong - pull a sound a long way forwards and it will become what drummers know as a 'flam', while pushing it later will give a lazy, languid feel, ideal for disco and funk. It also helps with maintaining a solid, loud mixdown - something that plays fractionally before the beat will be audible at a much lower level than something that has to compete with the kick and everything else that's playing exactly on that beat. So it makes good engineering sense too!

All in all, the backbeat is an integral part of dance music, and one that can fundamentally influence the feel and groove of your track - so it's worth spending some time and exploring all available options to make sure it's really right. Hopefully these words will have given you a few new ideas, so fire up that beat and make some noise!

Get Your Music Heard!

We've said on this blog plenty of times that you need to be getting your sounds out there as much as possible - sending your tracks and mixes to blogs, labels, DJ's that may play them out, and so on. But we've not spent much time delving into what you should actually say in these mails. And it makes a big impact - sending the wrong email is no better than sending nothing at all. In fact, it could even be worse if you find yourself on someone's spam list. So lets take a look at some of the do's and don'ts of this tricky area...

The most important aspect is to get to the point. The first couple of lines of your email should say what the mail is and what's contained within it. Bloggers and DJs can get dozens of promo mails a day; more than they could realistically listen to, and a huge proportion are completely irrelevent - indie-pop bands sending promos to dubstep blogs and so on. So straight away, your mail should set out exactly what's contained; what the music sounds like, any DJ's that have been playing it out, and so on. Leave the bio and other information until further down.

The next big issue is to have a streamable link, preferably that the user can skip through. Soundcloud is perfect for this type of thing, even a Youtube link will do. This really can't be emphasised enough. Connection speeds are getting better, but still nobody wants to be downloading a 15MB file before they can give it a quick spin. And making the recipient jump through all the hoops to complete a MegaRapidSend download could put them off altogether. Make it as easy as possible for the recipient to preview the track and there's a better chance they will actually do so. Email attachments are not much better - many people have settings that will block attachments over a certain size, precisely so they don't get spammed with mp3s.

You should also personalise your email as much as possible. No-one likes to see a blatantly generic mail, and especially if you're looking to get signed or get a DJ to play your tracks, you should explain why they might be interested in you. This brings us on to that classic promo error - the BCC fail. Your author receives at least one mail a day which is CC'd to about 300 other random addresses, from magazine accounting departments to PR companies, and the first reaction is to consider it a low priority - with all those addresses, if one recipient doesn't deal with it, someone else might pick it up. It also annoys people to see that their email address is being sent so far and wide - so make sure you at least use the BCC function!

Fortunately, in the internet age, it's no longer really necessary to have a huge and impressive looking introductory mail. A big HTML email may look clever, if it displays properly, but in these days of instant information, people just want the facts. A jazzy press pic, a lengthy biography explaining how you got your first set of decks aged just four, the reasons behind why you made this or that track - all basically irrelevant. You can cover all that with a link to your website (where, of course, all this information should be easily accessible). It's highly frustrating to be scrolling through an email full of information looking for the one piece that really counts - where you can hear the track!

So what an email should look like? Well, it should be short, concise, and well-written - you don't want people thinking you're as slapdash with your music as you are with your spelling. It should include a brief description of what the music is like, and any recommendations that you can think of - DJs who are already supporting it, labels that have previously released your work, etc. It should include links to stream and download the music, perhaps a recent mix, and links to your website or facebook page where people can find more information if they choose. If you can include any personal gambit to the recipient, to make sure they realise you're mailing them directly instead of just spamming a list you found on the internet, then so much the better. And last but not least, be polite!

It's really not rocket science, but it's something that so many people get wrong, so often. Waffling emails, sent to someone who wouldn't be interested anyway, with links to some pop-up farm download site... they all make the promo experience dour and tedious. Follow these simple rules and you may find you start getting a much better response from your mailouts. So next time you're composing a promo mail, bear some of this in mind.... and good luck!