First of all, it's a question about 'what is the final goal that you would like to reach with your music, CD or other type of creative project?' And second, it's a matter of your budget.
Anyway, for the Katsy Redstar project Beautiful Life, I wanted to do this in a DIY fashion for the following reasons.
• Independence. Don't want to have the production and music influenced by somebody who has more the commercial in mind than the creative fun of getting something done.
• Time. As semi-professional musician you have to get your money for living somewhere else. Hence, having a regular job makes it nearly impossible to focus 100% on your music.
• Flexibility. Getting into a creative flow means, you get new ideas and inspirations during the process. This sometimes can change the direction and schedule of your work. Typically, this isn’t so easy possible if you are in a contract and forced to deliver.
So, what to do if the above criteria are valid for you? Do it by yourself and be your own artist, producer and marketer in one person. Might not be suitable for everyone, but for me it's fun to do a bit of everything.
I have made my first experience with the DIY concept very early, by seeing enthusiastically how Ian MyKaye has grown up Dischord Records in the 80ties. It's not only the price and that type of political correctness behind it. It's very much about the spirit and energy that comes out of it.
However, I could make first experience with producing my own record in 2009. More or less by accident, I have recorded a bunch of songs that I have played from my kids as lullaby. Purely done in home recording, the sound was really amazing and I thought it would make sense to press this on a professional CD. After cost estimation I thought, ‘mhh that would be somehow possible to do, if I can sell in my personal network enough CDs to cover at least the cost for the physical production. (To be very clear: You hardly ever get back what it takes from a time perspective. Thus, never try to calculate what you do in terms of hours per $. You would get frustrated.)
With the Katsy Redstar children CD in 2009 I was in the lucky situation, that a lot of friends and colleagues bought some CDs. I could offer them at a good price, much cheaper than mainstream CDs in stores. And, because of the loveliness of the project, I found support from press and some local dealers. Thus, I could get payoff for what I have invested, not only from a money perspective, but also from an artist-network perspective. Which actually, became the foundation point for the Beautiful Life project that you can read on in my upcoming blog posts.
Stay tuned!
Anyway, for the Katsy Redstar project Beautiful Life, I wanted to do this in a DIY fashion for the following reasons.
• Independence. Don't want to have the production and music influenced by somebody who has more the commercial in mind than the creative fun of getting something done.
• Time. As semi-professional musician you have to get your money for living somewhere else. Hence, having a regular job makes it nearly impossible to focus 100% on your music.
• Flexibility. Getting into a creative flow means, you get new ideas and inspirations during the process. This sometimes can change the direction and schedule of your work. Typically, this isn’t so easy possible if you are in a contract and forced to deliver.
So, what to do if the above criteria are valid for you? Do it by yourself and be your own artist, producer and marketer in one person. Might not be suitable for everyone, but for me it's fun to do a bit of everything.
I have made my first experience with the DIY concept very early, by seeing enthusiastically how Ian MyKaye has grown up Dischord Records in the 80ties. It's not only the price and that type of political correctness behind it. It's very much about the spirit and energy that comes out of it.
However, I could make first experience with producing my own record in 2009. More or less by accident, I have recorded a bunch of songs that I have played from my kids as lullaby. Purely done in home recording, the sound was really amazing and I thought it would make sense to press this on a professional CD. After cost estimation I thought, ‘mhh that would be somehow possible to do, if I can sell in my personal network enough CDs to cover at least the cost for the physical production. (To be very clear: You hardly ever get back what it takes from a time perspective. Thus, never try to calculate what you do in terms of hours per $. You would get frustrated.)
With the Katsy Redstar children CD in 2009 I was in the lucky situation, that a lot of friends and colleagues bought some CDs. I could offer them at a good price, much cheaper than mainstream CDs in stores. And, because of the loveliness of the project, I found support from press and some local dealers. Thus, I could get payoff for what I have invested, not only from a money perspective, but also from an artist-network perspective. Which actually, became the foundation point for the Beautiful Life project that you can read on in my upcoming blog posts.
Stay tuned!
