john

Hey Bob, we meet again (I posted to your status feed). Once you get to 50 posts you can add your music link to your signature

Jon, I answered the salient points in that older topic. Run a mile. Don't walk. If you are serious about getting heard by professionals, you can do it yourself with a bit of homework. What angles have you tried to get a break?

That is true Mike, and no sleight on Nashville intended. That said I don't rate taxi. While they have had a few small successes, they really are small considering how long it has been running. Fees are not big by industry standards and while they stop short of making promises they do big up their contribution, big time. True there are gatekeepers, but they are gatekeepers for the masses. By that I mean people in the biz don't use them. They are the shiny silver paper to draw your attention while the real biz is done by non public listed companies working in a closed industry... Good managers and studio owners know how to make and develop those contacts themselves. They know what music press to buy to get info, what entertainments lawyers and accountants to use to get the inside line. They do not use taxi.

Oh and just because the bottom feeders in the industry run contests etc, doesn't make it the way business is done. Labels and publishers don't give a toss about competitions or any of that rubbish. What they are interested in is bands and songwriters with pulling power. Do you know where most A&R men do their basic research? MySpace, Soundcloud etc, where they can see the size of followings etc. followings equal potential customers. Got a decent following? Then they click play. A decent label or publisher doesn't need to run contests, or even scour the earth for talent. Every month they receive loads of unsolicited recordings even when they are not currently accepting submissions. When they put out the word that they are accepting submissions... They get buried!

Oh, and to follow on the fact that they do not say that they were specifically asked to find songs for the artist means that you do all that and then they send them in unsolicited. Worse, they arrive stamped by a company with a terrible rep for producing terrible recordings and your music goes straight in the trash. Believe me, there are a hundred ways they could "justify" you parting with your cash.

Hi Jon Real simple. Especially if they are associated with Paramount, who are famed for looking for inexperienced writers. It goes something like this: "After consideration and having matched you with a number of suitable artists who we would like to submit your songs to, we have decided that your recording is not fully up to standard. As stated we have access to some of the top names in Nashville. We believe that we stand a far better chance of securing you a contract by recording your song with top professional musicians and a "name" producer. The stars we mentioned are well known for only considering material that have the best quality recordings... " etc etc. Then there's "in order to give your pitch the maximum chance of success you will need a professionally written and compiled press kit / electronic press kit...." Of course they also make a commission if they ever did place this music. Out of interest they have a carefully worded letter. It says the artists "have let us know" and "we have begun a search for them". A strange way to put it... They most definitely are not saying "they have asked us to perform a search for new songs for their current projects". In other words it sounds like "we read in the music press these artists were recording and therefor might be looking for some songs, even though they haven't asked us, please send us your music so we can pitch it to them" Lastly, the big clue is that a publisher, or label, A&R doesn't pitch songs. They don't do song matching services for artists not signed to them to writers not signed with them. Their job is primarily to spot talent that they get signed to the publisher or label. They then help develop the writer or artist and act as a contact point between you and the label or publisher. They can be involved in a light weight way in marketing and promotion of finished albums, but they are NOT song pluggers, which IS the role they describe, or close to it. Even then, a publisher A&R only interacts with unknown writers as a talent scout, to sign them for the publishing house. There are companies out there who scout gullible, inexperienced writers or sometimes bands. Usually writers. Often they produce poor quality, mediocre recordings of songs after charging a lot of money. I have heard a few recordings made via paramount and they were worse than I could have believed. The best I have heard of such a company (it wasn't them) was an ok recording that had cost $3000 to use some second rate session musicians that once played on an album by a C list star. The music was uninspiring, safe, if reasonably recorded. It was not worth $3000. Why did they get the recordings? To do just as Paramount suggested and get their songs pitched.

Hey, welcome to Songstuff from a fellow Glaswegian and Sonar producer user.

I don't see why, you only advised caution