The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is the author of The Music Business for Music Creators (Routledge/ Focal Press, 2024). He is also a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer at BIMM University UK, a music industry consultant and an artist manager.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 67: A Producers Playbook
The world of music production has undergone a remarkable transformation. Gone are the days when producers were confined to traditional recording studios, working exclusively with signed artists. Today, the landscape offers a rich tapestry of opportunities that extend far beyond conventional production work.
In this eye-opening episode, I dive deep into the multiple pathways available to modern producers, revealing how diverse the role has become. One fascinating aspect we explore is how the same title—"producer"—can encompass wildly different responsibilities depending on the project. For some artists, you might simply polish an existing demo; for others, you could build an entire track from scratch based solely on lyrics. Understanding these variations is crucial for setting expectations and determining fair compensation.
Speaking of compensation, we carefully examine various pricing models and intellectual property arrangements. Should you charge hourly, daily, or per track? When might it make sense to work for reduced rates in exchange for master rights or songwriting credits? There's no universal answer, but clarity and communication are essential for sustainable success.
The episode also unveils multiple alternative income streams that have transformed the producer's career landscape. From creating sample packs for platforms like Splice to licensing beats through BeatStars, from developing virtual instruments to designing sounds for video games—each pathway offers unique possibilities for monetizing your production skills. We also explore the growing opportunities in remote session work through marketplaces like SoundBetter and the recurring income potential of production music libraries.
Throughout our journey, we don't shy away from practical considerations like managing self-employment, tracking expenses, and handling taxes—essential skills for thriving in the creator economy. Perhaps most importantly, we discuss the often-overlooked soft skills of patience, kindness, and effective communication that separate truly successful producers from the rest.
Whether you're an established producer looking to diversify your income or an aspiring creator wondering if production offers a viable career path, this episode provides a comprehensive roadmap to navigating the exciting possibilities of modern music production. The future is bright for those willing to adapt and explore!
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The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy. Hello everybody and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for music creators, available in hardback, paperback and e-book format. I'm a music creator with a variety of credits I'm a consultant, an artist manager and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:Ok, so this week's episode is really geared towards producers and the pathways that are open to producers. So if you're a producer, this is going to be the perfect episode for you to have a listen to. So if you're a producer, this is going to be the perfect episode for you to have a listen to. If you're not a producer, then please stay here with me, because you're going to learn through the lens of a producer and, I think, one of the ways that we learn more and more about the music business is when we understand the perspective of others. You know, it wasn't really until I started to think like a music publisher that I started to find success as a songwriter Many examples of things like that. But when we learn through the perspective of somebody else, it teaches us more about where we fit in. So if you're not a producer, please stay with this episode, and if you are a producer, this one's for you. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Ok, so let's think about various different things. We can talk about working with artists. We could talk about price points and pitching rights and all sorts of different things. Let's get started by thinking about working with artists. Right Now, there are so many variables to this right. So let's take, for example, a producer, an artist that says, let's say, three different artists, right, artist one, artist two and artist three, and they all want to go and work with this producer over here. Now it might be that the needs of that artist are very, very different and therefore the role of the producer is very different. So it could be that artist one says, yes, I want you to produce me, please, and you go, okay, and the role really actually is to kind of take the initial stems of a demo that they've already done and then add maybe another 30 or 40 percent uh, you know, production and arrangement to it, right? So it's kind of like a partial arrangement job, maybe recording their vocals and mixing it and mastering it and that's it. Right, that's the production job.
Speaker 1:Maybe artist two isn't like that. Maybe artist two has just lyrics, right, it doesn't have any kind of harmonic or melodic kind of setup to the song. So you have to do everything else outside of that, right, which is to help to basically build the song. So that sits very much inside a composition as well as production. On top of that, you're looking at everything from kind of choices of instrumentation, sound design, stylistic determination, genre specification, all the way through right to mix, mastering. So if you see the difference between artist one and artist two, it's a huge difference, right, but the label is you're producing that track or you're producing that artist, right?
Speaker 1:Let's take artist three. Let's imagine artist three is somebody that comes in and they've got all the chords, they've got all the lyrics, they've got all the melodies and it's just a piano vocal or just a guitar vocal and they say, right, this is kind of where I want to go with this loosely and you look at it and you go, okay, how do we get there? What are, what are our arrangement decisions going to be? Is the song the right tempo? How are we going to record your? What about if we do this or we do that? You see, already there are three different artists that go under, if you will, the label of you being the producer for that artist.
Speaker 1:But actually how you go about reaching their expectations is wildly different, the point being that the role of a producer is two things. One, it's hugely misunderstood by many people that don't quite fully understand it in the most innocent way possible, quite understand what a producer actually does. Secondly, it can be so many different things. It can be managing people. It can be hugely about managing budgets, about managing people and expectations. It can be a whole different manner of things. So, even though it goes under one simple title of being a producer, actually it can be lots and lots of different things.
Speaker 1:Now the other thing to think about is to set your terms, and when I say set your terms as a producer, I don't necessarily mean bog standard. This is one size that fits all. Maybe you want to do that, but I think the best producers are those that kind of cater for a wider demographic of people and a wider set of different circumstances. So, for example, it might be that you work with somebody and you go right, my price point is going to be this over here, I'm going to give you a day rate, or I'm going to give you an hourly rate, or maybe even I'm going to give you a track rate. Now, you need to be very careful here. Everybody right because if you were to give somebody a track rate ie, this is the fee for the track that I'm producing for you loads of people do it. Nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 1:However, there's flaws to it sometimes if you're not careful. Here's what they are. If you're working with people that are very pedantic, very picky about what they want, the fee for that track could take weeks and weeks, maybe even sometimes months for it to complete, complete. And then you think, oh man, I didn't charge enough for that, right, you don't want to be in that position. The way to offset that and to negate that risk sometimes is to set up a day rate or maybe even an hourly rate which really protects you as a producer, so that you can kind of go okay, this is what we're doing. I know what the goal is. This is how long I think it will take me. And, by the way, that's absolutely crucial because people will ask you how much do you charge, what is your fee, and you don't really know how to answer that unless you can figure out how long it's going to take you to do something. Sometimes that can be a second guess, but it's a dangerous second guess if you don't quite understand how that artist or that writer works.
Speaker 1:So it's very important that you set those terms and that you kind of figure out an idea of how best to work with that person, how best to price it. I would love to give you set standard rules to these things, but the reality is there aren't any, because everyone's different with these things. One guarantee is it does get easier in time, especially when you are talking to somebody. It's important to talk to people. People skills are a huge part of being a producer on a whole multitude of levels, especially at the start, where you're kind of just building an expectation of you know what your expectation is as a producer, which can be built reactively against what the expectation is of that person that is paying you to do that job, so think very carefully about what you're quoting and how your time is best spent. Another thing to think about and this has been in the best interest not only of you, but anybody else that you're working with is what the intellectual property is going to look like on that project you're working on. It's really, really important that this is at least discussed or explored in some way, either before you work with somebody or very early on in the process of working with somebody. So what I really mean?
Speaker 1:There are two different copyrights. We're talking about the song copyright and we're talking about the master rights, the rights to the recording. So if, for example, you're a producer and you say do you know what? I don't take any masters, I don't take any songwriting off anybody. I just charge a flat fee and that's how I roll right. Nothing wrong with that. Loads of people do that. But it might be the case where you say do you know what? I really like this artist? I am not going to charge them a fee for my time because I would like to have a credit on their record. I think they're great, I could work with them.
Speaker 1:Therefore, maybe there is no fee, maybe you're just going to say you know what, I'm going to take this chance, right, I'm going to work on spec or speculatively, if you will for effectively what feels like free, but really, in exchange for that, you're then going to say, well, you know what, I'm going to take X amount of your recording rights ie, I'm not going to take any of the song, right, because you brought the song here but I'm going to ask for I don't know, let's say, 10% of the sound recording copyright, and that's what I get out of this arrangement of working with you. You don't have to do that. I'm just speaking hypothetically. There's plenty of other people that kind of think that way, especially if you're trying to up your credit rate. Ie, you want to have, like you know, a playlist or a bank or catalog of things that you can say, yeah, these are the things that I've produced for these artists over here. Um, and the way in which I do that is I actually offer up my time for free in order to be able to get to that.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I often uh often, I think a mistake that a lot of people do, especially early in their careers is is charge a reduced fee. There's two dangers to doing that. Number one is people get used to it and you're kind of devaluing the service a little bit. By doing that, you're not helping the others around you in this sector. The second thing is this Charge proper rates, charge what you want to charge, but only charge when you think you should charge. Right, because there is nothing wrong with working for free in exchange for credit, you know, and collaboration. One of the ways that you put yourself on the map is by showing other people what you've done with others. So a way to achieve that is not always about taking a fee, but there are other times, of course, where it absolutely is about taking a fee because you've got to make a living. It's a tough balance to get right, everybody, but there's a little bit of truth in both of those two things there, and getting the balance right for you can only be dictated by you and the terms that you set.
Speaker 1:Okay, pitching rights is an important one, right? So let's assume that you've worked with somebody. Maybe you've worked with an artist, and it's very often the case the artist might say you know what I really do, like it, I love what you've done, but you know I'm not quite. It's not quite where I'm at at the minute or I don't want to put it out. It's important at that stage that then the producer might think well, you know, you might not want to put it out, but maybe I do. Well, that's not right either. You need the permission of that artist if you are going to use their performance in a recorded work.
Speaker 1:Of course you do, but maybe you could do this, maybe you could explore the use of how that track can be further used in the future, so that no one's time was wasted. An example of that could be can I pitch you for sync opportunities? Are you OK? If your voice is used on a sync opportunity that I want to pitch for, yeah, that's OK, or maybe no, that's not okay. And you go okay, well, that's cool. Listen, this is a great song, let's get another voice on it and let's put it out. That's just you finding another way to kind of get your work out there as a producer, but without, you know, having to kind of worry about losing the thing that you worked on for so long.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's just think outside of working with artists for a minute, because we are in very exciting and enterprising times, right For performers, for songwriters, composers, producers, djs, sound designers, you know. So there are other things that can be done, right? So let's think about this right, some of the content that you may have recorded. Maybe it hasn't seen the light of day, but maybe it's something that you can chop into and use for future projects. This could be things like sample packs, right, the digital pack of sounds that are copyright free and can be purchased and used by anyone without the need for copyright clearance. The producer, instead, would make money once the packs are then sold. That could be through a sample label or through your own store, or whatever it might be. The packs themselves could be chopped up song segments, construction kits, cultural kind of culturally specific percussion sounds, instruments and a whole lot more.
Speaker 1:There are a host of labels that deal solely just with the distribution and marketing and collection of sample packs. In the same way as, you know, kind of like a regular record company perhaps does, and also, similarly to you know, regular music distribution sort of methods, creators can always self-release their content through their own e-commerce and social media channels without any need for any sort of label or distributor. Sample packs can also, you know, be a useful source of income for producers and can double up also as a marketing asset. You know, especially if the creator is an artist or artist producers asset. You know, especially if the creator is an artist or artist producers. Many sample labels have their own stores also. You know where the packs can be purchased and downloaded for a fee. But in recent years, of course, there has been a huge shift in the market towards centralized platforms such as Splice, for example, which is probably the market leader where you know other producers can dig through the sounds that you have created or chopped up or designed, you know, for a sort of monthly fee and actually anybody can subscribe to Splice and also anybody can submit to them too.
Speaker 1:There's also things, of course, like beat leasing and beat licensing, so this has become much more kind of increasingly prominent over the last 20 years. Uh, perhaps closing in on a point of market saturation, and you know, and yet the need for that next big track right is is ever present in the global you know monster genre of of hip-hop and r&b and its various sub genres. You know the market leader for beat licensing it's probably fair to say, shoot me down if I'm wrong, but it's probably beat stars. You know where producers can kind of like lease or license their instrumental tracks to vocalists for a fixed fee, for example. Um, you can also do that on a split rate. You get split rates back as well. So you get back back end royalties as well as a fixed fee for that, you know. So platforms like that like beat stars, I mean they're becoming very kind of similar to mainstream streaming platforms such as apple and spotify, in that the traction feeds visibility. So you know, if you're willing to really put in the graft and do regular releases, if done correctly, you can really gain a lot of growth. But, unlike Spotify, you know it is possible to pay premium rates to increase visibility and gain promotion. I'm not saying that's the right thing to do. I think it's the right thing to do for you if you're making an awful lot of tracks and you're looking to not necessarily work in the room with producer but get your tracks to other artists for them to use.
Speaker 1:So there's also sample libraries and sampled instruments, which is kind of more falls more under being a developer. But it's very, very often the producers that kind of pave the way in that marketplace. So, unlike sample packs, which are basically just downloadable waveforms of sampled sounds. Sample libraries are genre and instrument specific playable instruments in software form. Right, so you know, imagine being able to play like a moon guitar or or an ode or a blues harmonica or something like that. You know, imagine having those skills at your fingertips in software form. So think things like. You know, um contact instruments, for example. You know.
Speaker 1:So sampling a player's technique in the form of phrases or loops or one shots can establish the basis of a sample library that can be then very, very useful to creators all over the world. Right, it's probably never been as easy as it is now to actually make a sample instrument. You can do it, you know, just in like your native DAW in Ableton and Logic, for example, are superb at being able to do that where you can just design an instrument within their sampler. So it could be maybe there's a unique instrument, or like a I don't know maybe even like a plastic toy or something that you think that could be interesting, that could be playable, be interesting, that could be playable. Not only could it become a unique kind of part of your sonic identity as a producer, but also you can make it available for others to pay for and for others to download. There are plenty of software developers out there that are always looking for people, especially producers, that can do that kind of thing and also record it and build it into something that's playable, also staying with income streams around that kind of subject of development.
Speaker 1:There's also things like plugin design and the preset marketplace. Now, you know much like the world of video creation. It could perhaps be said that the demand for software plugins in music is continual, right, so there's always a need for new ideas. But what's particularly pleasing for producers is how much easier it is becoming for emerging producers to design their own products and take them to market themselves. There are also producers that use their own creativity to kind of create new and interesting sounds within existing software synthesizers. So this is a skill, you know, which is also then going to be something that, let's say, for example, there's a producer that's just really really really good at working inside of a software synth, like serum 2, for example, which is a really really pioneering tool because it combines the two things that I just talked about there right, so a sample library and also the use of synthesis. If you're really good at building stuff in there, you can, of course, sell your preset packages or patches as they used to be called to other producers. And also, you know I mentioned about kind of sample packs and labels before. There's a little bit of crossover there. You know you might get a sample pack that also features presets for a specific sound or a specific genre.
Speaker 1:Now that brings us neatly onto the kind of concept of sound design, and actually there's a lot more opportunities these days for producers that can design sounds that can be used not necessarily as kind of musical pieces or stings or beds, but more so as sound effects that are built into a playable aspect of a video game, more so as sound effects that are built into a playable aspect of a video game. So there are a lot of indie. We're in probably the golden age of, like the, the indie game market, right. So a lot of people designing video games that need music, not just just for kind of scenes or for library music for for video games, but also reactive music right to certain scenes and movements Also one shot sounds for steps and movements and phrasings and collecting coins or whatever it might be within a game. That is a really, really strong emerging area that is perfectly catered for by producers that can design sounds.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I'm almost 20 minutes into this podcast without mentioning what is probably going to be the easiest way to make money as a producer, and that is through the remote session marketplace, right? So we're talking about places like Soundbetter, airgigs, etc. Now, all the way back in episode 52, I did an episode it was about half an hour episode just talking about how to kind of set up your own remote marketplace and that, by the way, works for all sorts of different people. Whether that's a horn player, a guitar player, an organ player, a vocalist, a bass player. It works especially well for producers. But what works especially well for producers is to actually split up your services a little bit, right, so kind of it might be that some people make tracks for other people, it might be that somebody just tunes vocals, it might be that somebody just edits or just mixes or just masters or just design sounds or whatever it might be, whatever plays to your strength. It could also be all of those things and more.
Speaker 1:But it's just very, very good to tighten up what your offer is to people, because you can get work very, very quickly and you'll need to know how long it's going to take you to turn jobs around and then some of the things that I mentioned earlier in this podcast episode today become relevant. So things like what your compositional share may or may not be on the rights, what your turnaround time is going to be, what your recorded performance is going to look like, do you take a portion of the master rights? What do you charge? Also, things like how many revisions you offer. You know it's lovely and it's friendly and it's noble to offer unlimited revisions, but it can be quite disastrous if you have a very, very picky client that wants to come back and ask for lots and lots and lots of changes.
Speaker 1:So one of the ways that you can reduce that risk is by offering a limited number of revisions. So, for example, it could be I offer two revisions. That means that people can come back and say right, I get two opportunities to come back and say can you change this? Can you change that? After that, you can then say that you want to charge more, change this, can you change that? After that, they have to. You can then say that you want to charge more. You don't have to. That's entirely up to you and the terms that you set.
Speaker 1:There's also things like whether you want to offer like visual attendance, for virtual attendance, for people to attend whilst you're working on something. Some people love that kind of thing, some people hate that kind of thing. It's totally up to you. But also video assistance can be quite good.
Speaker 1:One of the things of working with artists and songwriters sometimes is that they know what they want and it's very difficult for them to explain what they want on an email or whatever. So therefore, sometimes setting up a video, either before or after the project or both, can be really useful just to be able to kind of just or a phone call maybe, just to kind of get their understanding of what they meant by this particular term or what they maybe they sent your reference track but you've misinterpreted. Oh, I thought you meant the bass part. No, I meant the synth part. You know, just getting on the same page as somebody is really really, really important. Also, that offer that you've put out there has to be unique.
Speaker 1:If you're, if you're saying that, hey, I can do absolutely every genre under the sun, good you, but it won't always get you work, because people want specialism in the online marketplace, all right. So let's just zoom out for a moment and just think about this as a career route. Is being a music producer a viable career route? Absolutely is the answer to that, and it's probably never been as accessible or as quick to set up as it's ever been before.
Speaker 1:But here are some other things to think about outside of the creative or technical processes, right, what you'd be doing by doing the things that I've been talking about so far in the first 20 minutes or so of this episode is performing inside of the creator economy and the gig economy. So the gig economy is, you know, is an ecosystem, right, in which you know work is often available on a freelance or outsourced basis, so creators with high level expertise in their field can pitch for opportunities, apply for, I don't know, let's say, grants or work in partnership with other creators and organisations and adapt to their changing landscape. Now, the gig economy is there for you to work for yourself. It's not necessarily kind of like an employed position, ie you would be maybe self-employed or working for your own company and therefore responsible for your own company and therefore responsible for your own tax returns, and so on and so forth. These are the things that I know.
Speaker 1:It's not as exciting to think about those things, but they're really, really important because you have to take accountability for what you're earning and what you're spending. But the good news is, of course, is that all those plugins and those interfaces and those mics and all those things that you're spending money on those latest pair of headphones or whatever it might be they're all tax deductible, right? So that goes in a pile of this is what I've spent and this is what I've earned, and then those two things kind of offset one another and you pay tax on the profit of it, right? That's in a nutshell kind of how it works. So all those things that you're spending money on, right, yes, that's in a nutshell kind of how it works. So all those things that you're spending money on, right, yes, they're your hobby, yes, they're your passion, but they might have become your work now. So they're really important. Keep those receipts, Keep a track of what you're spending, because it will help you to keep a track of how you transition all of this into a business and make it sustainable.
Speaker 1:Now there is another thing which I've talked about a little bit on the podcast about before, which is production music, and it lends itself especially well to producers that compose. You know whether that's working with or without vocals, production music, stock music, library music. It's referred to as different things, but it is the same thing. It's basically music that's used as background on an editorial level for television programs. It can sometimes be a little bit more than that, but that's generally the gist of it. Producers are very, very, very well poised to be able to move into that market. That's especially true if it is a producer that specializes in maybe playing a specific instrument or maybe even just kind of. You know really good at sound design a composition, and just is good at creating a specific vibe and then also knowing what that vibe is and being able to make multiple tracks in that style. If you think about how the music could be used and then you use that information to inform you of your creative process, that is then something that makes you very, very, very useful to a lot of publishers and labels. By the way, just a quick zip back on that one, if you want to know a little bit more about production music, how to get into it, how it all works, the economics of it, etc. Then listen to episode 19, where I interview jason tarver, one of the leading expert composers in the world of production music. I think it is one of the most popular ever episodes of the podcast so far. It's episode 19 with Jason Tarver.
Speaker 1:If you want to know more about production music, okay, we can't talk about being a producer without mentioning the elephant in the room, two little letters that mean so much in this day and age AI. It is entirely up to you how much you want to embrace AI. If you absolutely hate it, leave it out the door. It is entirely up to you how much you want to embrace AI. If you absolutely hate it, leave it out the door. If you embrace it to maybe help your workload on a sort of editing level or a mix level, or maybe even on a composition or arrangement level, by all means embrace it. Most of these things I say most of these things most of the things being built over the last year or so is currently, you know, 2025, right now. But if a lot of the things that are being built for that marketplace now are ethically sourced and are fair, there are a lot of things out there that aren't. So you've got to tread carefully, haven't you? Like you have with anything, every day is a gamble, right? So, especially in this business, you've got to tread carefully and do what you think is right.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to, you know, advocate for the use of ai if you hate it, but you know I'll level with you. I do use it from time to time because it saves me time, um, and that is kind of one of the key things about it. So if that is a part of your workflow, great. If it isn't, that's fine too. If you're open to it, you want to know a little bit more about it, then I do have other episodes about that too.
Speaker 1:Okay, final thing to mention to everybody and it's something that I alluded to very softly earlier and that is soft skills, right, the ability to deal with people, the ability to manage time and expectations, time management, task management. Please don't ever overlook it. If you do, you could lose work. It's so important. The ability to be able to bring the best out of people is often achieved through kindness, isn't it? Through warmth? You know, if people are bringing their songs to you as a producer, or ideas of songs, or whatever it might be, they're bearing their soul to you, aren't they? So it's so important that, as a producer, you're you meet that with, with kindness, with, with warmth, with encouragement. It's like being negative is the most easiest thing in the world. It takes effort to be positive, doesn't it? But it's so important because it's so, so crucial to be kind I don't mean to preach about this, by the way, but it's something that has served myself and so many others so well over the years is to be patient and to be kind, and sometimes that's not always taught in the producer handbook you know of how to be a producer, but it's something that serves many people very well.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there's a little episode kind of like about the pathways for being a producer. Right, you know, there's just so many different career routes, especially with the onset of AI now as well, the creation of data sets and all sorts of different things. This is a subject which will continually evolve. You know it's not a static subject, because there are constantly new ways of being able to create income streams as a producer. It's an exciting time to be doing this, that's for sure, and can you make a living doing it? Oh, yes, absolutely you can. So there we go. There's a little snapshot into the pathways that are available for producers, and also a lot of things I've said today are also transferable to other aspects for other different types of music creators, especially those that can record themselves and send files around, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's enough from me for today. Thank you for listening, thank you for being here, thank you for supporting the podcast. Have a great day and may the force be with you. The Music Business Party. The podcast. Have a great day and may the force be with you.
