Tag: music

English · Interviews

Interview with Tilman Rautenstrauch (Digital Music Manager – Zimbalam Germany)

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tilmanrautenstrauch

What exactly is Zimbalam? 

Was genau ist Zimbalam? 

Zimbalam is a digital distributor that was set up to make digital music stores accessible in an affordable way. You can release your music worldwide, or on a territory-by-territory basis, for 24,99€ for a single and 34.99€ for an album. No extra charges or hidden fees.

Zimbalam ist ein digitaler Musikvertrieb, mit dem Künstler ihre Musik zu einem fairen Deal bei iTunes, Amazon und Co verkaufen können. 

Zimbalam is part of Believe Digital, a digital distribution company. What is the difference between both of them? 

Zimbalam gehört zu Believe Digital, einem digitalen Vertrieb. Was ist der Unterschied zu Believe Digital? 

Believe Digital is our professional service for labels and established acts. There is a label manager who helps to find the best release strategy. And there is a trade marketing team to promote music within the stores. Zimbalam is our model for independent artists and small labels who want to access digital music stores in an affordable way. As said, we take 24,99€ for a single and 34,99€ for an album. No extra charges or hidden fees. Artists get paid 90% of what we get back from the stores.

Bei Believe Digital arbeiten wir in erster Linie mit Labels zusammen, die viel und regelmäßig veröffentlichen. Ein Label Manager steht als direkter Ansprechpartner zur Verfügung und unterstützt bei der Release-Strategie und -Planung. Und ein eigenes Team kümmert sich um das sogenannte „Trade Marketing“, mit dem Ziel, dass Releases innerhalb der Stores gefeatured werden und so letztlich auch die Verkaufszahlen steigen.

Zimbalam dagegen ist unser Direktmodell für Künstler und kleine Labels. Statt mit jedem einzelnen individuelle Verträge auszuhandeln, bieten wir eine Art Paket-Deal an. Wir nehmen eine geringe Gebühr für die Vertriebsleistung: 24,99 für eine Single und 34,99 für ein Album. Und 90% der Einnahmen landen schließlich beim Künstler. Eine Bindung, Exklusivität oder Abgabe von Rechten ist nicht notwendig. Zimbalam ist also zugeschnitten auf Künstler, die ihre Musik digital verkaufen und dabei gleichzeitig frei und unabhängig bleiben wollen. 

How does my music get into the big stores and how is it charged? 

Wie kommt meine Musik in die großen Stores und wie wird das abgerechnet? 

Artists are completely in control of their release. They create a free account on http://www.zimbalam.com and access their own backstage area. Here, they can choose which stores or platforms and which geographic regions they wish to distribute to. We deliver their release to the stores and quarterly sales will show up in an artists’ backstage area.

Zunächst einmal meldet man sich kostenlos auf http://www.zimbalam.de an. Anschließend erstellt man sein Release über unser Backstage selbst: Man wählt aus, in welchen Ländern und bei welchen Download Shops und/oder Streaming Services man seine Musik verkaufen will. Wir liefern dann alle Daten, die Musik und das Cover an die Stores und übernehmen anschließend auch die gesamte Abrechnung. Die Künstler können genau scannen, wie sich ihre Musik verkauft. Es gibt bei Zimbalam umfangreiche Live-Statistiken, also die aktuellen Verkaufszahlen von iTunes, Amazon, Spotify und Deezer, und quartalsweise eine Detailabrechnung und -auszahlung. 

Do I need to be signed to distribute my music through Zimbalam? 

Muss ich einen Vertrag bei einem Plattenlabel haben, um meine Musik über Zimbalam vertreiben zu dürfen? 

No. The idea behind Zimbalam is to give unsigned artists the opportunity to sell their music worldwide. That’s why we call it a DIY-service.

Nein. Der Künstler hat bei uns alles selbst in der Hand und kann seine Musik in Eigenregie verkaufen. Wer einen Deal mit einem Plattenlabel hat, gibt üblicherweise ja die Masterrechte ab. Dann kümmert sich üblicherweise auch das Label – in Zusammenarbeit mit einem Vertrieb – darum, dass die Musik in den Handel kommt. 

Do I keep my copyrights? 

Wie sieht es mit meinen Urheberrechten aus, wenn ich mich für den Vertrieb über Zimbalam entscheide? 

Of course! Moreover, performance royalties are being paid by the stores for every download or stream. If you are a GEMA (Performance Rights Organisation, Germany) member, keep aware that – when using Zimbalam – the copyright field matches with your GEMA member name. So if you are registered at GEMA as „Paul Miller“, you should also fill in „Paul Miller“ in the Zimbalam copyright field, when planning your release.

Pro Streaming oder Download zahlen die Stores einen bestimmten Betrag an die GEMA aus. Wer als Urheber einen Wahrnehmungsvertrag mit der GEMA geschlossen hat, sollte lediglich darauf achten, dass die Angabe im „Urheber“-Feld bei Zimbalam mit der Angabe bei der GEMA übereinstimmt. Ansonsten findet kein Matching statt und der verdiente Anteil kommt nicht beim Urheber an. Wer also bei der GEMA als „Peter Müller“ registriert ist, sollte auch bei der Release-Erstellung via Zimbalam „Peter Müller“ als Urheber eintragen. 

What are the benefits of Believe Digital being the mother company of Zimbalam? Does internationality play a role? 

Welche Vorteile hat es, dass Believe Digital die Mutterfirma von Zimbalam ist? Spielt Internationalität hier eine Rolle? 

Zimbalam is something like our “talent bench”. We regularly offer promising artists more services at Believe Digital. This can be e.g. a better international positioning, specific trade marketing services or an efficient video promotion. And because Zimbalam is part of Believe Digital, we get competitive pricing returns on sales on behalf of our artists.

Zum einen sind bei Zimbalam alle Deals direkt. Wir nutzen unsere hauseigene Technologie und es gibt keinen weiteren Zwischenhändler oder technischen Dienstleister, der bezahlt werden muss. Außerdem profitieren die Künstler auch bei Zimbalam von den sehr guten Deals unseres Mutterunternehmens mit den Stores. Zimbalam ist sozusagen unsere hauseigene „Talentschmiede“. Vielversprechenden Künstlern bieten wir Mehrleistungen an und switchen sie zu Believe. Das kann zum Beispiel bedeuten, dass wir einen Künstler international noch besser positionieren. Aber auch eine gezielte Vermarktung seiner Releases in den Stores ist möglich. Oder die optimierte Auswertung der Videos eines Künstlers. 

Can I switch between Zimbalam and Believe Digital? 

Kann ich von Zimbalam zu Believe Digital wechseln und umgekehrt?  

Yes. As said, we regularly switch artists from Zimbalam to Believe to offer them more services.

Beides ist möglich. In der Praxis ist natürlich vor allem der Wechsel von Zimbalam zu Believe Digital für Künstler interessant. Für „frische Acts“ ist es zunächst wichtig, dass sie digital verfügbar sind und alle Rechte bei sich behalten. Schließlich weiß man nie, was kommt. Steigt ihre Bekanntheit oder gibt es gute „Argumente“ für einen Künstler, dann bieten wir bei Believe Digital verschiedene Zusatzleistungen an, um die Verkäufe noch zu steigern. 

Does Zimbalam offer any other features? 

Welche weiteren Features bietet Zimbalam neben dem reinen Vertrieb? 

We offer artists a lot of free tools to promote their music. There’s a player which can be embedded on every website and directly links to the stores. Moreover, there is a free Zimbalam website and a newsletter tool for artists.

Wir stellen den Künstlern kostenlose Promotion Tools zur Verfügung: Herzstück ist ein Player, den man auf jeder Website einbauen kann. Man kann über ihn Musik anhören und gelangt mit einem Klick direkt zum Produkt bei iTunes, Amazon und Co. Außerdem bieten wir eine kostenlose Website und ein ebenfalls kostenloses Newsletter Tool an. So kann man zum Beispiel über den Player einen Free Track anbieten – im Tausch gegen eine E-Mail-Adresse. 

What are the future plans of Zimbalam? 

Wie sehen die Zukunftspläne von Zimbalam aus? 

We are constantly improving and upgrading the free tools that we have available for artists, including daily sales reports from iTunes and Spotify. Our focus is on partnering with companies that will benefit our artists. By that, we want to strengthen our position as Europe’s leading DIY distribution service.

Wir sind der führende digitale Distributor für Independent Künstler in Europa und möchten das natürlich auch bleiben. Laufend ergänzen wir unser Store-Netzwerk, wenn neue Anbieter auf den Markt kommen. Wir suchen selbstverständlich auch regelmäßig nach interessanten Partnern, von denen unsere Künstler wiederum profitieren. 

by Sara Shirazi

English · Interviews

Interview with Detlef Schwarte (Director Reeperbahn Festival) & Alexander Schulz (General Manager Reeperbahn Festival)

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Schwarte
Detlef Schwarte, Director Reeperbahn Festival Campus, General Manager Inferno Events GmbH & Co. KG
Alexander Schulz, General Manager Reeperbahn Festival GbR, General Manager Inferno Events GmbH & Co. KG
Alexander Schulz, General Manager Reeperbahn Festival GbR, General Manager Inferno Events GmbH & Co. KG

What exactly is the ‘Reeperbahn Festival’ and how did it come into excistence?

Detlef Schwarte: Reeperbahn Festival today is the largest urban Festival for new international music in Germany presenting around 350 solo artists and bands from all over the world. And at the same time Reeperbahn Festival is one of the three most important meeting points for the international music industry in Europe. This year we will still expand the Festival´s horizon and include panels and performances which deal with other digital creative industry fields like mobile, games, maker-scene and media. We expect nearly 3.000 delegates from 35 nations to come to Hamburg this year. Besides this Reeperbahn Festival will again offer a massive arts programme including readings, exhibitions, guided tours or film screenings and the 8th edition of Flatstock Europe, the largest rock poster convention on the continent. All this will make Reeperbahn Festival the central european hotspot for international talents, trends and trade.

Alexander Schulz: But honestly this was not really what we had in mind when we started the Festival. I visited the SXSW Festival in Austin back in the year 2000 and came back with the idea that this kind of Festival – and it is just the music part we are talking about – could work perfectly in our hometown Hamburg, too. Because there is no other place in Germany like Hamburg St. Pauli and the Reeperbahn which is the central strip of this part of town. Two handful of music halls and theatres, dozens of clubs, hundreds of bars  – a 24/7 entertainment playground right at our doorstep. It took some years to convince the city, the club owners and the media of the idea. But in 2006 we booked the clubs, invited bands and started Reeperbahn Festival which was at this time half invention and half adventure. And it´s still like this, believe me!

The festival flourished in the past years – what is the main factor for this great success?

Alexander Schulz: The chance – and maybe the prevision – to develop the Festival step by step is the one reason for its success. When one element was doing alright we were able to add the next without changing the Festival´s general character. When the music Festival was – after a three years time – accepted and counted 20.000 visitors we opened the Reeperbahn Festival Campus as business-to-business section with a conference and networking services for the music and live entertainment industry. And now in 2013 we invite representatives of other digital creative industries for the first time to experience Reeperbahn Festival and a programme that is larger and more diverse than ever.

And all this still takes place at Reeperbahn – same venues, same atmosphere, but more input and fun. So the Reeperbahn itself surely is another reason for the Festival´s success.

And the third reason is that we are happy to have partners who believed in the concept of Reeperbahn Festival from the first day as there are the City of Hamburg, the Northern German Radio (NDR) or Warner Music.

What are the plans for Reeperbahn Festival Campus 2013, what can we expect?

Detlef Schwarte: In the scope of the conference we will cover a much wider selections of topics than before. Dave Stewart will hold one of our keynotes. He is a music world star but also a successful multi media entrepreneur and will talk about where in the business money still can be found. Nobody should miss that! Another keynote comes from Cornelia Funke, one of the world´s most widely read authors who sold more than 40 Million books. She won´t talk about traditional writing or publishing, but how she transfers her literary ideas into the digital world by means of a revolutionary application. So music crosses media crosses technology with the aim to get a better understanding of how ideas – or call it content – get alive and visible in the digital world. And how to do trade with it successfully.

Besides this Reeperbahn Festival Campus offers a number of matchmaking sessions where international delegates can meet with the german industry. We have around 20 international showcases from e.g. Canada, Netherlands, Switzerland or Israel and from companies like Warner Music, Believe Digital or Audiolith. Dozens of parties, internal meetings or shows as the legendary “Ray´s Reeperbahn Revue” with Ray Cokes complete the Campus programme 2013.

Why is it an absolute must for every professional to attend the festival?

Detlef Schwarte: Reeperbahn Festival is an event unique in Europe concerning its setting, programme and atmosphere. This is what we hear from our guests and probably this mix is the reason for that every year more and more people – fans and professionals – attend. From our perspective another advantage is that Reeperbahn Festival is big enough to meet a lot of people from the German and the international side of the industry. And it is still small enough to meet them a second or third time during the days of the Festival. And this is what finally counts – good new contacts. That is what makes Reeperbahn Festival the best gateway to the German and European market.

How do you want the Reeperbahn Festival to develop? What are your future plans? How could the Festival look like in 2020?

Alexander Schulz: We are convinced that we offer a modern type of meeting plattform for the music- and the digital industry already. Nowadays their deals are no more made along big boothes under the neon-lights in large exhibitions-halls. And public-visitors do not wish to only listen to world-famous live-acts some hundred meters away on a large stage. They like to pick music-cherries live, like they do every day on the internet, as well as the professionals do.

As we are aware of the fact that the event’s success among both, public- and business-visitors, is based on its compact and familiar music-atmosphere, Reeperbahn Festival cannot be enlarged in the future just by adding big venues, but only by adding another festival-day, while keeping the daily venue-capacity on this year’s level.

We have the plan to spread the brand year round and through different channels. We already started publishing an album-series of Reeperbahn Festival recordings on iTunes, we are presenting and supporting international artists’ tours in Germany, about 80 shows of this years Reeperbahn Festival will be recorded and broadcast through German public radio and TV and the European Broadcast Union, for example We are thinking of different other possibilities to spread the brand in the near future.

In 2020 Reeperbahn Festival should be established as a brand which is recommending good music in both worlds – the virtual as well as the real (live-)world. Sticking to that concept, the event will stay thrilling for public-visitors as well as for professionals.

Interviewed by Sara Shirazi

English · This & That · Tips

A New Strategy For Your Music

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Article by Lars Deutsch

www.larsdeutsch.net

 I have attended numerous events with titles such as “Which Brand Fits Your Band” or  “How To Get Your Song on TV”, where experts talk about the right color for a CD sleeve, how to wine and dine music supervisors or how to use social media.  After events like this, musicians go out and spend money for promotion and spend more time on the internet than with their band or instrument.  The end result is they find themselves at exactly the same place a year later.

Maybe it is not time yet to use your last cash to master your songs, hire a publicist, get more photos, shoot a video, etc…   All products need the right photos, packaging and campaign to be successful.  However, these steps make sense only if you actually have a working product. Unfortunately, even the most talented artists and bands usually do not have that product.

Before anyone could just record at home, bands played their songs hundreds of times in rehearsals and on stage.  It took real people in a real room.  The songs grew and changed with the band, and there was time for feedback and fine-tuning.  In an ideal scenario a band would bring their best songs to the studio, where a producer would work with the band to get these songs in even better shape.  A good producer would not only record what was handed to him, but provide input on instrumentation, performance and storytelling.  An experienced arranger could add a little magic by writing a delicate string arrangement echoing the melody.  A good recording engineer would then track the songs and mix the music, while the producer kept his eye on the bigger picture.

Today, it is often one person in a bedroom studio recording an unpolished idea and then trying to immediately push it into the market.  There is no time to mature, no feedback and no pool of experts. So when I meet an artist who is struggling to get placements or develop his or her career, I always encounter exactly the same issue:  the material is simply not good enough.

Often the songs contain great ideas, but vocal phrasing, arrangement and harmonic control (to list just a few points) are not up to a professional standard.  To this day, I have not heard a single “homemade” ballad with a solid string arrangement.  Yet almost all the ballads on the radio have solid string arrangements.

Your songs are the core of all your plans as an artist.  They deserve the best.  They deserve more attention.   

Your favorite singer or artist might be a great performer, but the reason the material sounds polished and “finished” is because of the team of experts behind each song.  You will see the same producers, arrangers and engineers on a number of successful albums for a reason – because they are the experts your favorite artist needs and trusts.

I will never be a great singer and I need someone better than me to sing my songs.  Chances are you need someone who understands songwriting and production better than you in order to get your material to the next level.

I don’t want to compete with people who focus full-time on developing their voice and stage persona.  So why would you want to compete with people who have developed their craft full-time over many years?  Just like I get help from a singer, you can get help to get your material in shape.  An artist needs grooming and objective feedback.  This is why bands such as U2 and Coldplay rely on Brian Eno for conceptual thinking, Daniel Lanois for musicianship, two engineers and a string arranger.

Here is my recipe for quality:

Go back to the standard process before home recording.  Perform your songs, let them mature, do demos and build a team.

From a producer’s standpoint, it takes a thorough pre-production with an artist who is willing to polish every note, regardless of whether this process is outside of his or her comfort zone.  It also takes an artist who is willing to fight for a vision and at the same time understands that good communication is all about the listener.  Both artist and producer need to be open to trying new things and to keep going until both are pleased with the result.

To sum it up:

Save your money.  Do not book a studio (yet), do not print 1000 CDs, do not hire a publicist and do not spend the time you should be practicing using social media to promote your unfinished product.  Spend your money to study songwriting and composition and / or work with someone who has the training, a solid track record as a songwriter and who has successfully coached and produced artists.  This might cost some money, but the up-front costs will save you time and money in the long run.

Once you have developed a number of songs that are so well-written and tight that they work in a simple acoustic form, you can take the next step and create a detailed demo.  After all the issues are ironed out and you have all the parts arranged, you can enter a studio or start the real recording.

All social media, CD sleeves and band pics come after that.