Wednesday
Oct082008
October 8, 2008 MTT Music - What's your advice? Should we launch MTT Music or scrap it?
Thanks everyone. I think we are going to reinvent this section. Thanks for the feedback.
With the SquareSpace platform, we were able to put MTT Music together in under two hours.
Music Think Tank is looking for your suggestions and feedback…
Here’s the concept:
- MTT Music is a place to get practically unfiltered, community feedback.
- One song is featured per day.
- Only studio-quality songs will be posted.
- Artists should be asking for honest advice and feedback.
- Click here to read the Guidelines Page.
Question: Will MTT Music be helpful to artists, or is this going to be something that gets overwhelmed by artists and underutilized by those that can give proper advice?
The concept is purposely vague. We are hoping to get some feedback on direction. No, we don’t have a revenue model…
Reader Comments (12)
By the time the song is at the polished "studio quality" (whatever that means) stage, it's too late for most feedback to be useful, because it's now too expensive to go back and make changes. The real feedback needs to happen after the apocryphal "four-track demo" stage of songwriting. There are already lots of places on the web for that kind of feedback, some better than others. So the question becomes, what kind of feedback would be useful at that stage? Hit potential? Radio-friendliness?
If you just want to do a song-a-day "check this song out!" kind of blog, well, there are already a lot of those out there, too.
Darren,
Good points on the audio advice. We were thinking about business advice also...
There's not a big enough user base here at present, which really mystifies me, as a side note...you've built an amazing resource here.
You're also asking your writing staff to make a small but considerable commitment of time and attention on a constant basis.
Perhaps I'm wrong and this will garner a lot of new attention and traffic. Anything that grabs your attention enough to ask about in the first place is probably worth trying. Worst case scenario is total failure and even then, at least you're gaining hard data.
I already have various avenues for soliciting feedback on my songwriting and the quality of my recordings, so my question to you guys would be: what different kind of feedback would MTT Music offer me?
I would be interested in stuff like "which of the songs on my new album is most marketable", but the one song per artist per month limit would kind of prohibit such feedback. Or perhaps MTT Music could answer questions like "where to best market song Y?"
I am neutral on this idea although I lean toward this forum not being the right place for something like this. I wonder if people would give their true opinions of someone's art when the peer group is peering [no pun intended] over their shoulder?
Perhaps this format would work better if artists were asked to present as follows:
- Here's my best song.
- Here's what I have tried.
- Here's what has worked.
- Here's what has not worked.
- Here's my goals.
- Here are links to my site / myspace page
Are my goals realistic, given what you see and hear? What should I do next? Thanks for your help?
This format may prove more useful?
Perhaps there is another way this concept could be useful. Artists like myself have problems identifying markets for their music once it has reached it's studio quality phase. And any advice from people who know the band is based on personal - not objective - opinions. A place where I could submit our music to a fresh set of ears and be advised that the song songs more country than rock, or should be pitched more to film than radio, would be very valuable. In addition, suggestions and thoughts on packaging, presentation, web design based around the sound would be a definate asset.
I would love to get some honest feedback from professionals, but there way too many bands and not enough qualified ears to go around.
Jim Offerman: Where do you get feedback from? I used to belong to Broadjam/Taxi, which gave reviews. When I belonged to it though, I really didn't want any negative/constructive feedback.
I'm going to also weigh in here about the "only studio-quality songs" rule. Who gets to decide what songs sound "studio quality"? I home-record on cassette 8-track and mix down to my home computer, and personally, I think my stuff sounds pretty damn good. Besides which, being a home-recording, self-produced artist is part of my "brand."
@Steve: The most valuable feedback I get is offline, from musicians I know and respect.
Online, I get the most out of the Just Plain Folks forums. Other great places to get feedback are forums dedicated to the DAW software you use. Finally, my fans are kind enough to write me long letters every know and then telling me which songs they love and what could be better.
Most of this is focused on the songwriting, arrangement and production of the songs, though.
If MTT Music were to provide feedback on how to best market songs, which stations or sites might be most interested, etc. it could be a very valuable addition.
Hi,
I think it's a great idea. Contrary to what Darren, the first commentor, said, I don't think they are many sites that offer to give your opinion on an indie musician's track every day like that. The only problem is, as you mention in your intro, I think you'll find yourselves with mostly artists visiting and wanting feedback, and not that many feedback-givers. Unless you manage to get known enough to become some sort of talent scout destination, like myspace was before it became swamped.
Anyway, on the website i work for, Jamendo.com, we get tons of music uploaded by artists, lots of feedback from users too, but this kind of professional-oriented showcasing site seems interesting to me. I'm sure we could even work together.
Patrick
Slicethepie seem to do the whole 'getting feedback' thing pretty well already - but I would question the relevance of getting feedback on your music from a bunch of people who probably aren't that into your genre or what you're doing anyway, surely most people have actual fans who are into the genre who the artist can go to for feedback already?