MTV Games is hoping to goose sales of its flagging “Rock Band” series with a new service Tuesday that lets average users upload and sell videogame versions of their own music.

The service, known as the Rock Band Network Store, may offer a few minutes of fame to rudimentary garage bands by allowing millions of game players to access their music.

But given the technical know-how needed to format a song for the game—which may require users to hire a pricey third-party developer—the service could wind up serving mostly as a promotional platform for established acts with deeper pockets, rather than the typical shower singer.

“Rock Band” and its rival, “Guitar Hero,” are two of the most successful videogame franchises to debut in recent years. But sales of both titles have slowed significantly in the past year, with combined sales in 2009 of $224 million, according to an estimate from Wedbush Morgan Securities—less than 50% their level in 2008.

Until now, most of the music available for play on either game has consisted of a limited number of songs, mostly by major acts like Nirvana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beatles.

With the new service, unknown bands are seeing their chance to get in on the act. But popular groups not quite big enough to make the “Rock Band” playlist are also preparing material for the do-it-yourself upload store, including Creed and Evanescence, each of which has sold tens of millions of albums in the past decade.

“We expected this to be an initiative that would appeal to unsigned artists,” says Paul DeGooyer, MTV’s senior vice president for electronic games and music. “What was surprising to us was how many artists with hit records have offered themselves up.”

The Rock Band network has been running in a private, invitation-only testing mode since September. For now, it is to be available only to users of the Xbox 360, made by MicrosoftCorp., which was also MTV Games’ partner in building the Rock Band Network. MTV is part ofViacom Inc. The network eventually is to be made accessible to users of other game systems, like Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3.

Preparing a song is complicated, and involves preparing an array of specialized digital sound files, lyrics, transcriptions and even instructions for virtual camera angles, lighting and choreography for the animated characters that perform the music within the game itself.

It has already spawned a cottage industry of companies offering to format recordings, for fees that can get steep. These contractors, with names like Rhythm Authors LLC and RockGamer Studios, typically charge $500 per minute of music.

Other costs involved in creating a song include the purchase of an Xbox 360 console, “Rock Band” game discs and instruments, as well as a subscription to an online Microsoft game-development “community” that costs about $99 a year.

Rock Band Network lets users set prices anywhere from 99 cents to $2.99 a song. The company retains 70% of the sale price, with the rest going to the user. Given the figures, musicians must be fairly confident they’ll sell real numbers of songs to justify their investment.

Sub Pop, a prominent independent record label, is paying various contractors to prepare 25 songs that it plans to upload to the store—all of them by acts among the label’s most commercially successful.

Those include the Shins, whose 2007 album “Wincing the Night Away” reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album-sales chart; comedy-music duo Flight of the Conchords; and indie-rock stalwarts like Mudhoney, Sleater-Kinney and the Postal Service.

Sub Pop was the original record label of Nirvana, but much of that band’s catalog is already available for “Rock Band.”

The label is treating the undertaking as a serious creative endeavor. It hired a prominent record producer, Phil Ek, to mix the music before delivering it to the contractors who format it for the game.

“At $3 apiece nobody’s looking to ‘Rock Band’ as a discovery tool,” predicts Tony Kiewel, head of artists-and-repertoire at Sub Pop. “That’s not going to happen,” he says.

From: WSJ.com

Our friends at Symphonic Distribution posted a great article from the recordunion.com blog that goes along great with our current topic of promoting. With South By South West and Winter Music Conference fast approaching this is a must read article. As always we are here to help you build your weapons of mass promotion so give us a shout to help you get your game plan together.

Promotion 101:Why you should hand out flyers at gigs

Performing live is one of the great joys of being a musician. However, it is important to think of a gig not just as a way of entertaining an audience for a little while and having fun, but as an opportunity to market yourself and reach out to new fans. Handing out a simple flyer is one important step for getting the most out of your live performances.

The Point

Promotion is all about developing relationships with listeners. During and after a successful live performance you are in a good position to move from a superficial and temporary relationship with potential fans, to a deeper long term one. This is up to you. Providing they can even remember your name, only a small percentage of the audience will take it upon themselves to find you online and listen more to your music. Make it easy for them. Hand out flyers.

What to communicate

A flyer can contain a single piece of information, or lots of information. It can be elaborately designed, or just a simple piece of paper with a bit of text on it. The key is that it gives the recipient more info about you and a way to access your music. Depending on your existing marketing strategy, here are a few things you might consider putting on your flyer:

•    Online locations: Your link to MySpace, Facebook, Imeem etc. or just your website

•    Where to access your music: Communicating that your music is available for free streaming on services such as Spotify or Deezer is a great way to increase the appreciation for your music. Before people buy your music, its best they can listen to it over and over and make it part of their music repertoire. Streaming services have the added bonus if sharability and peer recommendation.

•    Mailing list: “Keep updated! Sign up to our mailing list and receive a free track” is a good way to incentivize people to sign up to your mailing list. Once on your list, they are in the loop and you can further develop your relationship with them.

Tips

•    Maximize the effect of your flyers by thinking about when you hand them out. One method is to announce before the last song that flyers are being handed out, and getting some friends to hand them out in the crowd.

•    Alternatively, do it yourself. Straight after a gig, move around the crowd and hand out the flyers. This gives you the opportunity to converse with listeners, receive compliments and answer questions.

•    Be creative on what you put on your flyer. Hosting a merch give away or another kind of competition? Advertise in on your flyers and you may find more participants.

From: Record Union’s Blog Via: Symphonic Distribution’s Blog

San Francisco Police Department officers have added a controversial tactic to their aggressive raids on house parties (see “Fun under siege,” 4/22/09): they’re seizing laptop computers from DJs at the events.

While SFPD officials deny the laptop seizures is a new policy, they admit it has been condoned by Police Chief George Gascón, who took over in August and last month told the Guardian’s editorial board he wants to make the SFPD more transparent and accountable to the public (see “New coach, new approach,” 10/14/09).

“The police chief is aware that officers are being proactive in gathering evidence,” Sgt. Lyn Tomioka told the Guardian when asked about a string of laptop seizures by undercover cops over the last 10 months, most of them in cases in which the DJs weren’t even charged with a crime. (read the whole article here)

This is a new world now. In the past officers have confiscated audio equipment as evidence for underground events but now DJ’s need to be extra careful. In the future I have a feeling this could be common practice around the country as a scare tactic to DJ’s. It is important to back-up your laptop before events and I feel that if this does become common practice, and you are playing an underground event, that you need to have a laptop JUST for DJing. Keep anything and everything of personal value off the laptop and be sure that you have a complicated password on it to keep the man from snooping.

What concerns me is that there is always the possibility of a DJ not being aware that an event is fully permitted. DJ’s are hired and I would be hard pressed to believe that they are legally obligated to insure the event has it’s paperwork in line. If you play underground events often and use a laptop it may be a good idea to seek the advice of an attorney on what your legal rights are. If I was put in this situation I would probably demand that I be charged with a crime before allowing the officer to seize my personal property. It would be good to tell the officer that you were hired for the event and are not affiliated with the promoter or venue owner and therefore should not have my personal property taken. It probably won’t work, so be sure to ask the officer for his identification, get his badge number and name and immediately go to the police station to file a complaint. If he refuses call 911 and report that someone claiming to be an officer is refusing to produce identification and you need help. Do anything you can to make the taking of your property difficult but within your legal rights.

A laptop to a DJ is just like a drum set to a drummer. It is the tool of their self expression and as such should be respecting as a freedom of speech. There are some people who are concerned that the RIAA is behind the laptop seizures as part of a larger scale attack on performance rights. I see both sides of the fence on this issue, but I also know that most of our friends who are DJ’s play music given to them BY the artists to play as promotion.

Stay safe out there, have fun playing and keep your head down.

Over the past month, I received a significant amount of feedback on my recent MediaShift article, What Will Record Labels Look Like in the Future?. People from all areas of the music industry reached out and shared their feelings on future business models, and strategies for moving forward.

Regardless of their background, practically every person I spoke with agreed on a core set of truths about the future of record labels (and the industry as a whole). The consensus is that:

• Financially, the current situation most record labels find themselves in is not sustainable, especially for companies whose main source of revenue is selling music as their primary product.
• Sales of digital music have not come close to replacing the revenue lost from the decline of physical sales. Overcoming this requires a significant shift in label expenditures, and revenue sources.
• Investors are finding it very difficult to find opportunities that have an acceptable chance of return on investment. This applies to releasing music, as well as ancillary services and products around music.
• Power is shifting away from labels and back to the artist and management. Labels still provide valuable services, but, for the first time in decades, they are no longer the center of the industry.
• The ultimate power now rests with the fan. The dollars they spend are being fought for harder than ever before. At the same time, fans are demanding more content than ever before.

Here’s what the experts had to say… ( continue reading at the article source, MediaShift on pbs.org)

1: Print Type

There are 3 types of printing for stickers: Offset, Screen, and Digital.

-Offset: This type of printing is usually done on indoor label stock for items like food containers. They are not very durable and should only be used in a low-impact indoor setting.

-Screen: This type of printing is done on a screen-printing press– much like a t-shirt. This works good for indoor and outdoor uses when you have a single color, or multiple colors that do not blend together. Bumper stickers are a good example of screen-printed stickers.

-Digital: This type of printing is done on a large format inkjet type of printer. It creates full color images on a vinyl stock. Typically you can print short run on this type of machine and this allows for small quantities of stickers to be produced for a special promotion. It is usually slightly more expensive then a screen-printed sticker, but if you have multiple colors or a complex image it is often a more economical way to go. Be sure to ask your printer if the set-up they are using is appropriate for outdoor use, as a laminate or UV coating is often needed to keep the image weatherproof.

2: Coatings

There are a few different coating types, and we will not get into too much detail here as there are many variables for different print types and what a printer may offer. You will want to be sure that a UV coating or a laminate is used on offset or digital printing methods if you plan on using your stickers in an outdoor setting. Screen-printed stickers often do not need a finishing coat if the ink used and vinyl it is printed on is of outdoor quality. As a general rule of thumb it is always a good idea to let your printer know what setting your stickers will be used in and if they are able to provide a product that will accommodate that.

3: Cutting

The finishing slice can be an important one! There are a couple of methods you should know about.

-Guillotine Cut: This is a standard straight cut. Your sticker is cut into a rectangle or square (like a bumper sticker) all the way through the actual sticker and backing.

-Die Cut: This type of cutting creates a custom shape through the actual sticker and backing. Die cutting can create standard shapes like circles and ovals or create an outlined look that creates the same shape as your image. Die cutting is usually an extra charge, as the shape has to be created by a die house. If you are planning on having a large volume or repeat orders, then the cost of the die may not be a big factor for the added value you get from it.

-Kiss Cut: This method is usually done on a contour (AKA CAD) cutter. It is a machine that looks similar to a digital large format machine. This type of cutting creates the same custom shaped sticker that a die cut would accomplish but does not go through to the backing (the blade “kisses” the sticker but not the backing). Many times when you print a digital sticker you are able to have a kiss cut at no extra charge.

-Kiss and Guillotine Cut: usually when a kiss cut is created it is combined with a guillotine cut. If you have a very small image often multiple stickers will be placed on a page. The only disadvantage of this combo is that there is a scrap area around the actual sticker. It may not look as high-end on the backing, but as soon as it removed and placed on a surface it has the exact look of a die cut.

4. Extras

A good thing to keep in mind is that it is often possible to have additional information that is not on the actual sticker.

-Backing: Many printers offer a single color back print on the paper backing of the sticker. This allows you to put such things as a coupon code, website address, catch phrase, etc. on the part of the sticker that can stay with the person after they have stuck it on something. This can be a very good marketing tool, especially when your sticker might end up somewhere the person you gave it to may not see it again.

-Kiss Cut Scrap: Another great place to add a little extra info is in the scrap area of a kiss cut sticker. It is on the front so it is very visible and it usually does not cost anything extra as it is on the same side as the image. Many times a printing company will offer you a discount if they place a “stickers by eternitemedia.com” type of phrase in the scrap of that area.

Now that you have an idea of what is out there hopefully you are able to determine what is a good fit for your needs. Remember that when promoting with stickers be sure to check your local laws and regulations on sticker promotion. Some cities have banned stickers as a way to cut down on the mess it leaves behind. Stickers should never be placed on private property without permission. It does not look good on you, it’s a pain for the property owner and damaging private property can get you in trouble. Play it smart, have fun, and get stick’n!

In this blog series we will discuss helpful tips when you are out promoting yourself, cool alternative flyer ideas, what to put on your flyers, the do’s and don’ts and other helpful ideas. Stay tuned!