Masters Program - Lesson 1 - Posted on 2014-03-03 by Collin McCombs

Lesson one of the Masters Program was basically an over view of everything I learned in the Bacholers Program, but since I knew all that stuff already Aaron and I talked about the business side of music. To start out we talked about copyrights. Copyrights of a song are usually owned by the creator or the record label. This includes copyrights of the composition, arrangement, lyrics and sound recordings.This kind of ownership gives the copyright holder exclusive rights to create and distribute copies of the music. After that we talked about how a project is carried out when working for a record label. Usually the label gives out so much money for the artists, managers, producers, engineers and studio time. Aaron told me if I was ever approached to engineer a project and they said I would get paid on the back end to run the other way. This means I would get paid after recoups, and recoups are never guaranteed. Next they go into the studio and begin the project. Most likely the label will expect a finshed product by a certain date. Once to project is complete the label listens to it and tells the artist what they like, and don't like. For example, if the label says that they don't like tracks three, seven, and ten then the artist has to go back in the studio and redo those tracks with leftover money from the budget. If there is no money left the artist has to pay out of their pockets to finish the project. After that we talked about the importance of printing and distribution deals. D+P deals are necessary to get your music into Best Buy's, FYE's and major distributors like that. I enjoyed this lesson alot and can't wait till next week so I can learn abot compressors in-depth.