The Schema: July 2007

DIY music used to consist of a C30 cassette of tunes which you'd recorded on a 4-track in your shed. You scrawled on it with some biro, or a felt tip if you were posh, shoved it in a jiffy bag and sent it to John Peel. But now, it's different, isn't it. Yes, it is.

The Schema challenge is to record, distribute and promote a single from my bedroom in a 30-day timeframe. The resulting yacht-rock spectacular is called Those Rules You Made, and is released under the name The Schema on 20th August, via iTunes and a load of other online stores. My name is Rhodri, and this is the story...

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July 2007
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In The Shops

Getting your tunes onto vinyl or CD used to be expensive, but provided you had the cash in the bank it was easily done. More difficult was actually getting it into the shops. Distributors were, and are, a hard headed bunch of fuckers, and with good reason - they know full well that your record was likely to sell barely anything, as no-one beyond your own cultural and physical cul-de-sac had ever bloody heard of you. This led to the common phenomenon of bands with hundreds upon hundreds of their own CDs under their beds, propping up the TV, filling every conceivable space with a grim reminder of the unmarketability of your music.

Today, we have the mp3. It occupies no physical space whatsoever. We don't have to guess how many we're going to sell before we start. Every download just magics another copy out of the digital ether. If we have big hopes, but fail miserably, we won't trip over a teetering pile of mp3s every time we go to the bathroom. This is a relief. But how do we get it into the online stores?

iTunes is obviously the key. It's where the majority of online music is bought. Of course, Apple don't want to talk to a zillion different artists who all want to upload their warblings. So if you're unsigned (and god, have any of us ever been remotely signed, even for a second) you have to deal with a 3rd party.

If you search on Google for "getting on iTunes" or similar, you usually end up at a site called CDBaby. Investigate online forums talking about CDBaby, and you quickly realise that CDBaby are swamped beyond belief, and will take 3 months to get back to you after you've sent them, er 5 CDs - CDs? come on, it's 2007! - and might never get back to you at all. Sounds a bit like a CD distributor circa 2002. And they're in America. We'd like a home-grown solution.

And we found one. EmuBands is a company based in Glasgow. They'll get your music on iTunes, Napster, TuneTribe, MSN, Yahoo, MTV Download Centre, CD Wow, etc, with the minimum of fuss, it seems. For a 2-track single, as we've just made, we just pay £24.95, email them the WAV files of the tunes along with a JPG image, sit back and wait. We've asked nicely, and they reckon 4 weeks before we get in the stores. Provisional release date of Monday, August 20th. And we get to keep 100% of receipts. Now this, we like. Total spend: £62.29.

posted by The Schema at Wednesday, July 25, 2007

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What About The Music?

We've kind of glossed over the making of the tunes. Thing is, it's difficult to cost, isn't it. One thing about DIY in the 21st century is that gear is cheap, the technology is tidy and the results have the kind of sheen you used to dream of getting from your local studio, and they were charging you £120/day to sit around in damp conditions while a long-haired engineer ruined your magnum opus. Studios are shutting down left, right and centre, kids are buying Pods to put their guitars through - and suddenly they can sound like Metallica, in their bedroom. Electric guitars at home always used to sound like a sealion being plucked with a bag of sugar.

Without wishing to get techy, here's what we used. We either owned or borrowed this stuff, so we're saying that the total cost of recording = zero, otherwise where would you stop. Do we include our keyboard player's piano lessons when he was 8 years old?

1 x Powerbook G4. 1 x tambourine. 1 x MOTU828 audio interface. 1 x AKG mic. 1 x Logic Pro software package and a couple of plug ins. 1 x midi keyboard. 1 x bass. 2 x guitars. 1 x Behringer V-Amp. Lots of drum samples (sorry, drummer, we kept it simple.) 1 x Line 6 Bass Pod. 1 x pair of maracas. End of tech. Total cost: £37.34

posted by The Schema at Tuesday, July 24, 2007

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Art Route

So, the unanswerable question is posed: What do The Schema look like? We're cagey about this. Whether this is because we believe that a little mystery goes a long way, or because we're trying to avoid the hilarious world of band photography where everyone stands moodily in a line and pretends they're about to start a revolution, or because there's an outbreak of acne on the bass player's chin, well, we'll let you think what you like. But music does need a visual aspect, and after spending 2 fruitless hours dicking about in Photoshop with this image (cost £2.35) we decided to haul in the professionals. It didn't cost much (£25, mates' rates) but then again, they didn't have to do much. One JPG image, tastefully colour-matched, nicely laid-out, kept simple, represents us, represents the song. Change the website to match, bingo. Total spend: £37.34.

posted by The Schema at Monday, July 23, 2007

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MyGarageSpaceBand

So, we've recorded these two songs. It's like the old 7" a-side and b-side, I guess. Of course, this format is completely outdated, and we may just as well have recorded just the one song if we're going to release it on the internet. But, as Isaac Newton put it, for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, which was relevant when I started typing that sentence.

You can't be a band on the internet without a MySpace page. That's like being a chef without a stove, or a football player without an offensive wife. So here it is. You can hear the tunes, ta-daa. But you can't have them yet, oh no. Streaming only. We're nothing if not tight-fisted. There's also a Garageband page, here. I'm a bit suspicious of Garageband, though, as they're already trying to persuade us to part with $19.99 to enter Those Rules You Made into some kind of song contest. We're fans of Eurovision, but I don't think Bucks Fizz or Lordi had to shell out $19.99. We'll ponder this one. Total spend: £9.99.

posted by The Schema at Sunday, July 22, 2007

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Domain Master

So, a website and a band is born. Thanks to Freeparking, we've got the domain www.schema.co.uk for 2 years. I'm not sure we'll need it for 2 years, but there you go. Webhosting courtesy of Dreamhost, which we already have an account with, so costs nothing to stick another site on the plan. There you go, our very own web presence, for under a tenner. The blog system is done via the freebie system at Blogger, which is owned by Google, so, uh, so much for DIY, we've got the multinationals involved at the first hurdle. Brilliant. Total spend: £9.99.

posted by The Schema at Saturday, July 21, 2007

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	DIY music used to consist of a C30 cassette of tunes which you'd recorded on a 4-track in your shed. You scrawled on it with some biro, or a felt tip if you were posh, shoved it in a jiffy bag and sent it to John Peel. But now, it's different, isn't it. Yes, it is. The Schema challenge is to record, distribute and promote a single from my bedroom in a 30-day timeframe. The resulting yacht-rock spectacular is called Those Rules You Made, and is released under the name The Schema on 20th August, via iTunes and a load of other online stores. My name is Rhodri, and this is the story...
	Buy The Single! from iTunes from us Our Links the VIDEO! rhodri.biz email MySpace Garageband PureVolume TagWorld Bebo Facebook App Assisted By drinkmilk Emu Bands likemind Lot 49 Films Marysia K HitSongScience DreamHost Mailing List Type email! Previous Posts Sales Figures Quarter Million Number One YouTube insanity Internet Radio Video Cost It's Out Web ranking Online Press VHS, DVD, 320x240 MPG Archives July 2007 August 2007	In The Shops Getting your tunes onto vinyl or CD used to be expensive, but provided you had the cash in the bank it was easily done. More difficult was actually getting it into the shops. Distributors were, and are, a hard headed bunch of fuckers, and with good reason - they know full well that your record was likely to sell barely anything, as no-one beyond your own cultural and physical cul-de-sac had ever bloody heard of you. This led to the common phenomenon of bands with hundreds upon hundreds of their own CDs under their beds, propping up the TV, filling every conceivable space with a grim reminder of the unmarketability of your music. Today, we have the mp3. It occupies no physical space whatsoever. We don't have to guess how many we're going to sell before we start. Every download just magics another copy out of the digital ether. If we have big hopes, but fail miserably, we won't trip over a teetering pile of mp3s every time we go to the bathroom. This is a relief. But how do we get it into the online stores? iTunes is obviously the key. It's where the majority of online music is bought. Of course, Apple don't want to talk to a zillion different artists who all want to upload their warblings. So if you're unsigned (and god, have any of us ever been remotely signed, even for a second) you have to deal with a 3rd party. If you search on Google for "getting on iTunes" or similar, you usually end up at a site called CDBaby. Investigate online forums talking about CDBaby, and you quickly realise that CDBaby are swamped beyond belief, and will take 3 months to get back to you after you've sent them, er 5 CDs - CDs? come on, it's 2007! - and might never get back to you at all. Sounds a bit like a CD distributor circa 2002. And they're in America. We'd like a home-grown solution. And we found one. EmuBands is a company based in Glasgow. They'll get your music on iTunes, Napster, TuneTribe, MSN, Yahoo, MTV Download Centre, CD Wow, etc, with the minimum of fuss, it seems. For a 2-track single, as we've just made, we just pay £24.95, email them the WAV files of the tunes along with a JPG image, sit back and wait. We've asked nicely, and they reckon 4 weeks before we get in the stores. Provisional release date of Monday, August 20th. And we get to keep 100% of receipts. Now this, we like. Total spend: £62.29. posted by The Schema at Wednesday, July 25, 2007 +=+=+ What About The Music? We've kind of glossed over the making of the tunes. Thing is, it's difficult to cost, isn't it. One thing about DIY in the 21st century is that gear is cheap, the technology is tidy and the results have the kind of sheen you used to dream of getting from your local studio, and they were charging you £120/day to sit around in damp conditions while a long-haired engineer ruined your magnum opus. Studios are shutting down left, right and centre, kids are buying Pods to put their guitars through - and suddenly they can sound like Metallica, in their bedroom. Electric guitars at home always used to sound like a sealion being plucked with a bag of sugar. Without wishing to get techy, here's what we used. We either owned or borrowed this stuff, so we're saying that the total cost of recording = zero, otherwise where would you stop. Do we include our keyboard player's piano lessons when he was 8 years old? 1 x Powerbook G4. 1 x tambourine. 1 x MOTU828 audio interface. 1 x AKG mic. 1 x Logic Pro software package and a couple of plug ins. 1 x midi keyboard. 1 x bass. 2 x guitars. 1 x Behringer V-Amp. Lots of drum samples (sorry, drummer, we kept it simple.) 1 x Line 6 Bass Pod. 1 x pair of maracas. End of tech. Total cost: £37.34 posted by The Schema at Tuesday, July 24, 2007 +=+=+ Art Route So, the unanswerable question is posed: What do The Schema look like? We're cagey about this. Whether this is because we believe that a little mystery goes a long way, or because we're trying to avoid the hilarious world of band photography where everyone stands moodily in a line and pretends they're about to start a revolution, or because there's an outbreak of acne on the bass player's chin, well, we'll let you think what you like. But music does need a visual aspect, and after spending 2 fruitless hours dicking about in Photoshop with this image (cost £2.35) we decided to haul in the professionals. It didn't cost much (£25, mates' rates) but then again, they didn't have to do much. One JPG image, tastefully colour-matched, nicely laid-out, kept simple, represents us, represents the song. Change the website to match, bingo. Total spend: £37.34. posted by The Schema at Monday, July 23, 2007 +=+=+ MyGarageSpaceBand So, we've recorded these two songs. It's like the old 7" a-side and b-side, I guess. Of course, this format is completely outdated, and we may just as well have recorded just the one song if we're going to release it on the internet. But, as Isaac Newton put it, for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, which was relevant when I started typing that sentence. You can't be a band on the internet without a MySpace page. That's like being a chef without a stove, or a football player without an offensive wife. So here it is. You can hear the tunes, ta-daa. But you can't have them yet, oh no. Streaming only. We're nothing if not tight-fisted. There's also a Garageband page, here. I'm a bit suspicious of Garageband, though, as they're already trying to persuade us to part with $19.99 to enter Those Rules You Made into some kind of song contest. We're fans of Eurovision, but I don't think Bucks Fizz or Lordi had to shell out $19.99. We'll ponder this one. Total spend: £9.99. posted by The Schema at Sunday, July 22, 2007 +=+=+ Domain Master So, a website and a band is born. Thanks to Freeparking, we've got the domain www.schema.co.uk for 2 years. I'm not sure we'll need it for 2 years, but there you go. Webhosting courtesy of Dreamhost, which we already have an account with, so costs nothing to stick another site on the plan. There you go, our very own web presence, for under a tenner. The blog system is done via the freebie system at Blogger, which is owned by Google, so, uh, so much for DIY, we've got the multinationals involved at the first hurdle. Brilliant. Total spend: £9.99. posted by The Schema at Saturday, July 21, 2007 +=+=+