[Boydie]

Hi All

I wanted to make this post to try and help out those on this forum that intend to make any commercial pitches to publishers

I have been very lucky to have been "picked up" by a publisher, who is currently pitching my songs to artists, managers and larger publishers

This afternoon I received some feedback on one of my songs, which was initially a little disappointing BUT within a few minutes I realised the value of this feedback so I thought I would share it with you guys and gals

The feedback was from the SENIOR A&R MANAGER at one of the big boys, which has placed hits with Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, Madonna, Rihanna, Britney Spears and many others - so it doesn't really get any more "from the horses mouth" than that

The song being pitched was "Watching Me, Watching You"

https://soundcloud.com/boydiemusic/watching-me-watching-you


The feedback from the pitch was:

I'm sorry to be negative again but this demo quality is juts not good enough.


Really, even if the sings were great the A & R s these days don’t bother of the demo is not high standard.


So i m sorry for that but the whole quality of sound has gone really up since the swedes arrived

I have no idea who "the swedes" are and the person writing this email is not a native English speaker (by "sings" I am pretty sure he means vocals - although I quite like the term "sings" for vocals so I might start using it as "industry speak"  )

I am confident that he is referring to the "quality of sound" rather than the quality of the song itself, although we should always be striving to write better songs and I personally do not feel this song is "the one" but the publisher wanted to pitch it

To be fair this was my first attempt at "modernising" my sound and it was recorded over a year ago - and I have learnt a lot in that year

However, I was still surprised at the comment regarding the quality of the demo

I have been banging on for ages that the days of "guitar & vocal" demo are dead - are we now seeing the end of "home produced" demos (good news for studio owners!)

I would be interested in other's thoughts about the "sound quality" of the track and the overall quality required for commercial pitching

I am actually seeing this as a huge positive and an opportunity to "raise my game" - although I am a little stumped as to exactly what I need to improve so any help to figure this out as well would be gratefully received!!!!!

[Sing4me88]

I think is still positivity in this feedback even if it wasn't the result you wanted. Any little bit of feedback from these guys is like gold dust- and from what I gather I think their problem is more in relation to it being home studio produced than the actual quality of the song. At least this allows you to focus future efforts etc although the thought that only professionally produced studios is a little disheartening and something I've always found hard to accept. I maintain - rightly or wrongly -that if a sure hit were pitched with only guitar and vocals that would still see the $ signs and snap it up.... well one can only hope

[clutchit]

Great post. I'd just like to say that he certainly meant to say 'songs' when he wrote 'sings'.

[clutchit]

I will take a listen to the song tomorrow

[Dutchbeat]

Hi Boydie, i am probably wrong, but i was thinking "the Swedes" perhaps refers to ABBA??? May be stupid, but these two guys from ABBA apparantly had some creative and new ideas about recording and mixing, and especially of the vocals, so....i was thinking that this publicist may specifically be hinting to looking at how the vocals are mixed in your demo, so the technical sound quality of the "sings" 

will listen tonight

[Boydie]

Interesting comments

I think "the swedes" is actually referring to something else, probably a new management team at the publisher as I got the feeling it was something more recent - ie recently they have raised the benchmark for demos

I think it is great feedback from "the industry" which is why I wanted to share with y'all - especially those pitching

[S.T.C]

Sweden is a major force in the pop world( or was) so maybe they meant the `swedish` sound,,like Roxette....?
Apart from that,,,the reply in MHO is unprofessional ,the spelling and terminology is amateurish  ....and i don`t know if they are correct!

But the best demo you can possibly make can only help.

[Boydie]

the reply in MHO is unprofessional ,the spelling and terminology is amateurish  ....and i don`t know if they are correct!

Just to clarify, this was a private email from one publisher to another - they clearly have a "relationship" of sorts for him to even receive a response

The "big" publisher in question represents the biggest acts and writers on the planet so I am starting to wonder whether this is the "creme de la creme" of publishers and therefore they expect to receive better quality demos

It will be interesting to see if I get any feedback from the smaller publishers, artists etc.

I will keep you posted...

[Kafla]

Kind of what I was saying in my review of your song Boydie - not that I am in any way an expert - but my English is marginally better than your contact 

The sound needs beefed up like Avicci and Swedish House Mafia - the swedes I presume

Produce your track like a dance remix - hard bass and beats - lots of autotune on vocals , sythn break outs

I haven't got the skill to do it but I am sure you have 

[Boydie]

Thanks KAFLA

I think you are spot on about the Swedish reference

I also think your bang on the money about the production

I don't quite know how to achieve this yet - but I will learn!!!!!

[Jamie]

I'm also pretty sure Kafla is exactly right, it's what I thought before reading the thread.
Jamie

[torgny_n]

Aaaaaa those bloody sweedes!! 

[DevyE]

I believe the email is written just using slang to get his point across quickly 'sings' is singers and 'Swedes' the band already mentioned.

I had a listen to the song, I don't know what instruments/tools were used to create the track but to get the beefed up beats/effects for todays market maybe a tool like Maschine could assist. In Maschine you can create a number of scenes to create the song in your DAW, it seems very flexible but there would obviously be a learning curve.

[clutchit]

Just listened to the song now. Really enjoyed it. Well done.

Also as I said in my earlier post he meant to write 'songs' not 'sings'. I is next to O on keyboards.

[Boydie]

Ah - I think you are right CLUTCHIT

So If that is the case even a GREAT song will not be considered by A&R if the production of the demo is not top notch 

This has been quite an awakening for me

I am also starting to think the "swedes" are the likes of the "Swedish mafia" and Avicii

I have been studying some of their production techniques and have a whole load of new ideas / approaches to try out so whatever they meant I have already learnt a lot