Quote Originally Posted by MorePunkThanFunk View Post
but if there's no money in the industry to pay artists then how are they going to produce quality music? Does that mean you expect every artists to work for free in there spare time. does this mean the techno community is going to be reduced to a bunch of part timers?

i truly believe this will have consequences on the quality of the music. who pays the mastering engineer? or does that mean techno no longer gets mastered.... or worse still the mastering engineer works for free as well. who pays the designer for the label artwork, or is that going to be reduced to half rate design?

surely this is going to have consequences

if this is the direction that techno is takes then it's going to develop into a very 'amateur' genre.
you'd be suprised the amount of records that dont get mastered properly anyway, regardless of if the mastering is being paid for, to the point where the tracks actually sounds worse when mastered and pressed to vinyl than the actual track in its raw finished state sounded. It happens all the time, the very debate of being professional or amateur doesnt even come into it.

Pat Skoog offers free downloads at times, does that mean Pat is having a bad effect on the industry? No, certainly not. It means there's just 1 more other person who still genuinely loves just making music and putting it out, regardless of if he's getting paid or not.

If we were to bring everything back to the bone here, then the minute you even try and sell your music, or your "art", then the very piece in question is compromised straight away. Art is a freedom of expression, or a happening if you will. If your a natural artist, be it making music or painting oil on canvas, you'l be doing this regardless of wether or not you know there is a pay cheque waiting at the end of it. You do it for yourself first and foremost, if anyone happens to like it and likes it to the point of either wanting to buy the work or release it to the public to buy, then happy days. If not, its still happy days. Or it certainly should be.

Most artists in techno at the moment are pretty much part time anyway, i know of very, very few people who literaly just produce records or dj to make their living. In terms of mastering, you have to remember most mastering engineers work over a broad range of projects, run mastering suites or houses where they have all sorts of commisions or work on the go, im pretty much certain that the lack of techno labels wanting to master through them is not going to affect their business at all, and if it was too, then they should genuinely look into the meaning of the saying "putting all your eggs in one basket"

you have to remember that, certainly in my experience, people work in a very much community minded environment, and as long as you've got friends to help you out now and then, then offering a free label wont have any affect on the current techno scene at all. In this example, the design seems to be done by the guys who do the flyers, or am i wrong (sam or jay?) and i would be pretty certain that they have a good relationship as theyve been using the same designer since day 1 as far as i know. I personally know plenty of top designers, producers and a few really top draw mastering engineers who i know would be more than happy to help me out if i was to offer a free net label, and certainly wouldnt ask me for payment. I would however offer it, but i know for certain they wouldnt take my money off me, and in turn i would offer them help in whatever they needed, whenever they needed it.

All offering a free label does is show that the guys behind it have very, very good business heads on them in the sense that starting or running a vinyl label right now is pretty much financial suicide, unless you happen to get lucky and the stars all align and bring great sales, but however, and its a shame, it just isnt working out that way.

The only thing that will bring more money to Techno is more coverage for techno, more fans of Techno and if the people already involved in the Techno scene all raise their game to do this, but even then the days of being able to pay the rent off a release are long, long gone. This isnt 1997 anymore, anyone thinking they are going to make their fortunes off techno be it as a producer or a dj needs too take a long, hard think