Share The Spoils, Or Pay Up Front?

December 28, 2022 by Aaron

Instructional Stuff, Music Business, Published Work, SonicScoop

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, home recording, making beats, music business, music collaboration, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, should i pay my music partners, SonicScoop

When and why to cut collaborators in on the backend

This article first appeared on SonicScoop.com. I reprint it here and encourage you to check out their super informative site!

Imagine this scene. You’ve laid down an incredible piano part, a great vocal, and a passable drum line. You’re thinking this song would really be better with a real drummer, and you know just the person. You call them up, send them the track and they love it. You know how to integrate their performance, you know how to be flexible and collaborative, and you’re confident the track will soar because of your friend’s influence.

But when you think about paying for that work, things get a little iffy. Maybe your budget is tight and you’d rather not spend anything, but your friend normally costs $200 a session. What can you offer?

If you’re like most of us, what comes to mind is offering a piece of the backend. When you make money, your friend makes money. It costs you nothing now and if the song gets big, he makes more in the long run. Great! But wait. Is it wise to share on the backend, or would it be better to simply scrape together some money and hire your friend as a session player?

The answer depends on a lot of things, including what your friend wants, where you both are in your careers, the nature of the work, and just your preferences. Regardless of all that, however, there are some things you should bear in mind before jumping headlong into a backend sharing scenario.

To make this decision, you need to think through what it really means to share a percentage and how that will affect you in the long run.

What Does Backend Even Mean?

First, you should probably know what it means to “share the backend”. At its simplest, this means when you make money with a track, you share that money with your friend. But its important to consider everything that entails, and all the different ways a track can make money.

Rivers Of Revenue

There are many ways a recorded song can potentially make money. You can think of those revenue streams like a river with two major branches:

1. Songwriting – Songwriting revenue goes to the writers of songs. Songs are intellectual property defined traditionally as lyric and melody. They exist separately from any performance of them, and any media those performances may be captured on.

2. Recording – Otherwise known as “master rights”, recording revenue goes to the owners of a recording of a song.

To understand the difference between a song and a recording, think of this scenario:

Harry writes a song called “This Is My Song”. Johnny records “This Is My Song” as an acoustic ballad. Suzy records “This Is My Song” as a heavy metal dirge.

Johnny owns his acoustic recording. Suzy owns her heavy metal dirge recording. Harry owns the song. Harry gets the songwriting revenue on both recordings, but not the recording revenue.

So, before you even begin, you have a decision to make. Assuming your project is a song you wrote, you’ll be the owner of both the songwriting and recording revenue. Are you sharing both sides with your drummer friend? Or, are you only sharing the recording side?

Tributaries Of Tribulation

Next, you need to understand the various ways each major branch can make money. This can get really complicated and an in-depth explanation is beyond our scope here, but you can start with understanding some basics, including where money comes from in each branch.

Songwriting

In the songwriting branch, there are several possible streams, all of which are paid to the owners of songs. In the simplest form, they are:

· Performance Royalties – paid (usually) by Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) like BMI, ASCAP or SESAC

· Mechanical Royalties – paid either by recording owners (labels, traditionally) or digital music services like Spotify.

· Sync licensing – paid directly to song owners by video producers when they want to use a song in a movie, commercial, TV Show or other video production. Note this is a different fee than the fee paid to the owners of recordings.

The thing to understand here is that depending on your activities, you might end up owing your collaborator directly. If you intend to shop your songs to music supervisors and you land a license, you’ll have to track what you’re paid and pay your friend their share.

You and your partner both need to be registered with a PRO to collect performance royalties, and possibly also a publishing admin service for mechanical royalties.

One of the major things to understand about sharing songwriting with say a drummer or a session guitarist is that if you (or someone famous?) produces an entirely different version of the song without that performance, you will still be splitting songwriting revenue with your partner. If you feel generous, or you feel like their contribution deserves to be recognized as part of the songwriting process then by all means share and share alike! Just be aware of this beforehand.

Recording

In the recording branch revenue is a bit simpler, but as you might expect, it can get complex the more you dive in. Keeping it simple again, there are only two tributaries in the recording branch:

· Sales – If you sell a CD at a show, that’s a sale. You owe your partner their portion. If your distributor pays you 47 cents for streams and downloads, you owe your partner their portion. If you sell a download directly, you owe your partner their portion.

· Master Use Fees – If you license your track to a video producer, you could be paid a “master use fee”, and you’ll owe your collaborator their portion. As noted above, this is separate from the “sync” fee paid to the song owners. This can be confusing, because often these fees are combined for purposes of simplicity.

What it boils down to on the recording side is that you will have to track your sales and fees. This can get complicated when you consider that a typical quarterly report from your distributor might have thousands of lines of miniscule transactions for all your songs. It’s your responsibility to track that data, determine how much you owe your friend, and pay them. You’ll also need to track direct sales at your shows or from your website.

This can be a daunting task, especially if you have a lot of collaborators, but there are some services and software available. The author uses DashBook, and there are relatively affordable monthly services by Label Engine and Royalty Worx, as well as a lot of higher priced services aimed at bigger companies.

There’s also the option of using a distributor that will split up payments and send directly to your partner(s) and many people are moving to that solution. As of this writing there are five such distributors: DistroKid, Soundrop, RouteNote, OneRPM and Songtradr. The only drawback there is you can’t deduct expenses before paying out – the payments are made and it’s up to you to manage how much you’ve spent. If you’re the only one who will spend money promoting your work, you might consider a little higher percentage for yourself.

Will I See You Again?

Once you’ve considered how you’ll handle money, you should consider the relationship. When you enter into an agreement to share the revenue from a production, you’re bound together forever, or at least until you discontinue the release.

You need to know that you’ll be able to contact your partner, and that they will let you know if their contact info changes. You need to have reliable payment information, and you need their PRO information so you can register songs properly (if you’re sharing songwriting). Even if you’re just paying by PayPal, you’d be smart to have a physical address on file, and you’ll need to remember to send them a 1099 if you pay them more than $600 in a year.

Even if you’ve decided to use a distributor that will split monies for you, you’ll still need to contact them if you get paid a sync or master fee or make money in other ways. Another thing to consider is that some distributors require your collaborators to sign up or ALL the revenue is frozen (your part too!). Finally, some distributors have an annual fee for membership, so it might not seem worth it to your friend to join up if they think their royalties won’t cover the expense (a valid concern).

Just as in a marriage, you’ll have to consider the possibility of a falling out down the road, and know that you’ll still have to maintain contact sometimes. That can take maturity that some musicians lack. If your friend is likely to disappear or cause a lot of trouble, you may consider paying them up front instead.

Communication (In Writing) Is Key

If you’ve considered all the ramifications of “getting into bed” with a collaborator and you still think that’s the way to go, then you’ll want to communicate very clearly about everything. You should discuss business up front and if possible you should sign paperwork ahead of time.

Speaking of which, all your agreements should be in writing, and you should consult a lawyer to give you boilerplate templates to use for your productions. A proper contract will not only mitigate possible conflict, it’ll also make it a lot more clear how to go about things.

You’ll need to be clear about what the percentage splits are, who has control, who can pitch the song to opportunities, who can distribute or sell it, what the title is, what the act is, and what promotional activity is allowed or expected. The more you can talk about, agree to and sign off on ahead of time the better.

A contract is also a good place to gather all the necessary information like real name, email, physical address, phone number, PRO ID number, and any payment information.

It may seem a little overwhelming at first but in reality, clear communication and complete paperwork aren’t hard and they save a lot of time and effort down the road. In addition, you will not be able to enter into a licensing agreement without signed paperwork documenting all contributors.

The Other Side

There’s another side to this coin. What if you’re the partner? How do you decide whether to allow someone to pay you on the backend or ask for a fee up front?

Well, you should consider all of the above, but ask yourself whether your potential partner is equipped to handle all that. Also ask yourself whether the royalties on the backend will be equal to or more than your potential session fee. If the answer is an absolute no, then you obviously won’t say yes, unless you just happen to love the project or the person and don’t care.

If you really think that a production will make a lot of money, then 10% of master rights for life may be a whole lot better than a $200 session fee. You’ll have to balance your need for money now with the possibility of more later.

Of course, from your point of view, the best case is to get your fee and some backend points. If you can secure that deal, more power to you!

When You Should Just Pay

Even once you’ve educated yourself, set up your systems and put yourself in a position to properly share the backend on a production, you don’t necessarily want to do that in every case. In fact, your life will be easier if you can do it as little as possible.

Some reasons you might choose to come up with a session fee include:

· The player won’t do a backend deal

· It’s unlikely you’ll maintain contact

· You want to minimize the amount of admin you have to do

· You think you will make the session fee back and then some and want to maximize profit

· The player is flakey or might block release by not filling out paperwork, returning calls, etc.

· You want to just use the track and not worry about credit and who did what

· You’re using a service like SoundBetter to hire a freelancer.

Even when you do choose this easier path, have your session player sign a waiver that releases you from any further obligation once the fee is paid.

It Can Be Great

After reading this, you may feel like sharing on the backend is just too much hassle. Admittedly, that’s partly the idea here; to show that “sharing” is a little more involved than a lot of people think, and sharing responsibly is necessary if you want to stay out of trouble.

That said, once you get organized, sharing properly is perfectly doable, and the benefits are undeniable. Sharing can make productions possible even when you have zero budget; it can allow you to work with people you couldn’t afford (if they’re willing); and in general collaboration is one the most fulfilling aspects of making music. Not to mention that when a partner has ownership of a project, there’s a completely different sense of pride and care. It’s often the only way to get someone’s level best. Of course, you need to be generous and you need to show that you’ll live up to your end, but if you do, the results can be magnificent.

I’m a vocalist, producer and writer who is always collaborating. Look me up if you have an idea on Facebook or Instagram

It’s A Small World, After All

March 22, 2021 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron trumm, audio collaboration, modern music production, music collaboration, music production, recording magazine, remote collaboration, remote music collaboration

These days, you can collaborate with anyone, anywhere

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

The other day, I sent a PayPal payment to my friend Javier for his half of a licensing fee, after our song was used in an MTV reality show. Javier has been a joy to work with. He’s super talented, easy going, and I can count on him for quality. I’ve also never met him.

I live in Albuquerque, NM and he lives in Corpus Christi, TX. We met on a Facebook group and we collaborate entirely remotely. As it turns out, I have collaborations with people from Texas, Canada, Australia…you get the picture. I even have collaborations with local people that weren’t done in person.

It seems remote collaboration is the new world order, and it makes sense. Digital audio and quick internet make it possible to meet and work with anyone who’s willing, and that means doors that were previously locked are now wide open.

Not Really New

In truth, remote collaboration isn’t entirely new. In fact, ISDN technology, which is a system of digital telephone connections that allow recording between far-away studios, has been in use since the 80’s, mostly in the broadcast and voiceover worlds. ISDN allows talent to perform in a studio or even in their home on one coast and have the receiving studio on the other coast record the signal in real time. It’s incredibly useful for voice and broadcast work, but it would be hard to perform against a music track that way, as the delay would be prohibitive (more on that in a bit).

What is (sort of) new is the sheer number of ways you can collaborate on recording projects from lands afar, using either normal internet resources, or purpose-built solutions designed specifically for music.

Many Ways

Assuming you’ve got a partner somewhere else and you want to do a project, you’ve got a number of options for how you might collaborate. What tools you use depends on the general method, and there are basically three categories of remote collaboration.

“Offline” Sharing

Probably the most widely used method, “offline” simply means that collaborators use their own tools on their own time and use normal file sharing and communication tools to share tracks and talk about projects. This method comes with its share of potential issues, but is probably the easiest way to start, and offers the greatest flexibility as far as tools used and scheduling.

When simply sharing files, each of you can work in your DAW of choice which is great if you like different systems, because you don’t have to worry about a learning curve. There are some things to take special care about, though, when going back and forth between DAWs.

First off, if you have different DAWs you can’t just share projects back and forth, and you can’t just grab the audio folder and give it to your partner. You’re going to have to export tracks and send them via some file sharing method like Dropbox, Box or Google Drive. This will take some extra time, so plan accordingly. It’s often a good idea to zip files before uploading, especially if there are a lot of them.

You’ll need to coordinate the sample rate and bit depth you’re working on (best to agree on that ahead of time), and what file format you each prefer. What tracks you send to your partner depends a lot on what each of your roles is. Perhaps you’re producing a track and you’ve hired a session vocalist to track a lead vocal. That vocalist might just need an instrumental mix that they can sing against, or they might want you to separate drums, guitars and pianos.

In any case, you’ll want to send them direct exports, and NOT edit the front. Make sure what you send and what they send back start from true zero, and make sure each of you is using the same tempo in your DAW. Let your partner know if there’s a pre-roll (space on the track before the song actually starts) and at what measure to expect the song to come in.

In the previous example, your vocalist would end up sending back a lead vocal track, also exported from zero. If you’re in that position, don’t chop off your track to save file space. Send the full-length version, even if there’s a minute of silence before your part comes in.

If you’ve got tempo or time signature changes, be sure to set that map up properly in both DAWs so you don’t end up in trouble.

If you happen to be using ProTools and you do want to save time by not recording from zero every time and not exporting the whole track audio folder, here’s a slick trick:

Go forward in the song to a couple measures before where you want to come in.
Set the playback head to an exact measure, eg: measure 55.
Rename the track with the measure in it, eg: “lead vox meas 55”.
Record, and then find the clip in the audio folder named “lead vox meas 55”.
Send that a long with a note. When your partner imports it, it will be in the wrong spot at the beginning of the file. They can move it to exactly measure 55 and voila.

Note: Not all DAWs name clips this way, but if you know how your DAW names clips, you can manipulate it in similar ways. When in doubt, though, just export your tracks full length.

All in all, there’s a reason simple file-sharing is still the most widely used method of collaborating. It really gives you and your partners the most flexibility, and keeps you working in the environment you’re most comfortable with.

Cloud Based Session Sharing

A hybrid option between extremes, cloud-based session sharing, where collaborators work on the same session online but at different times, is getting more and more popular. This option offers a lot of convenience, and with some tools, the added benefit of social-media style open collaboration.

There are actually quite a few cloud-based solutions. For cloud collaboration using existing DAWs, ProTools now has Avid Cloud Collaboration, Cubase has VST Connect (which also has some real-time capability) and uploading directly to your BandLab account is now built into Cakewalk.

Other tools, like Splice, Bandlab or Soundtrap, are their own DAWs that run online or can be downloaded. Some of these tools offer a unique opportunity to open projects for contribution by anyone in the community. Of course, if you do this be aware of the legal ramifications and communicate clearly.

Splice is like Facebook meets Soundcloud, with an app to download for cloud backup, a web based pseudo-DAW which can create projects and edit in popular DAW formats (like Ableton or Logic), and a lot of options for meeting new collaborators, sharing work, and hearing new music. For a fee, you can also get access to samples, loops, effects and presets, and even rent-to-own popular plugins.

BandLab has a similar social media vibe, and the option to work in an online DAW which includes a bunch of handy (if odd) presets for getting started quickly, like a one button drum machine. And since BandLab recently bought and resurrected Cakewalk, there’s cloud collaboration integrated into that software too.

Cloud collaboration is a great option for working with people across the globe who have vastly different schedules, for keeping things organized, and for opening up a world of new collaborative possibilities.

Fully Real Time

It is possible with the right software and good enough internet on both ends to do a recording session in real time, as if you were sitting in the room together. This is the hardest option to implement, but productions take a lot less time when you can sit together at the same time, and you get the benefit of almost real human interaction.

A surprising number of tools exist to accomplish this, among them the aforementioned VST Connect by Steinberg, Source Elements Source Connect and OhmForce OhmStudio, to name a few. The thing to remember with real-time tools is that both parties’ internet connections need to be fast and reliable enough. For example, Source Connect requires 300kbps upload AND download streams, and VST Connect requires 256kbps upload speed.

For real-time to really work, you’ll want to connect to your router at the fastest possible speed (preferably using Gigabit Ethernet), and if possible, connect using wired ethernet rather than WiFi. Check into your upload speed as well as your download speed. You should try for at least 20Mbps download and 10Mbps upload speeds.

Try also to minimize the amount of other activity using bandwidth, such as browsers, Skype or other internet connecting software. If you’re in a home studio, you might also need to minimize the amount of other internet activity going on in the house, such as streaming videos or downloading music.

Once your internet is humming right, you’ll have to coordinate which software to use. Source Connect runs as an app which allows you to route audio from whatever DAW you prefer to your partner’s DAW. With VST Connect Pro, one person can run the main DAW (Cubase 7 or above) and a performer on the other end can run VST Connect Performer, which is free to download.

Other packages like OhmStudio can be used real-time or asynchronously and have the added bonus of opening up projects to community members who are signed up for the service. OhmStudio is also a standalone DAW.

One thing to note: In almost all cases having more than two parties in the “room” is either impossible or unrealistic. And of course, you’ll have to schedule sessions like you would in person, which may be difficult if you’re in vastly different time zones.

Pitfalls aside, it can be a pretty cool thing to get back to real-time communication, making changes together on the spot, and being in engaged with a real live human being. And when it works, this method is certainly faster than others. It’s worth giving a try if your gear is right.

Actual Jamming?

To dovetail a bit from the section above, what if you want to play together with a group of people? Maybe you like that vibe, or you want to rehearse, or for whatever reason you’d like to sync up like musicians tend to do, but from across the world.

This is technically possible, and a few real-time collaboration tools allow it, if your connections and computers are robust enough. Contrary to what seems intuitive, you can’t jam together over something like Skype or Zoom (you could do a simple writing session that way though). The latency in normal communication apps is too great, and you won’t be able to sync up. You certainly can’t record together that way.

Still, there are tools cropping up for online jamming. Jammr (jammr.net) is in beta testing as of this writing, and JamKazam (jamkazam.com) has been around for a few years now.

If you want to learn the real nitty gritty on this topic, there’s a free online course offered by Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music And Acoustics (CCRMA) which will teach you how to set up online jamming using open source tools. Learning these techniques will give you a deep understanding of the process and problems of online sync, and really deepen your knowledge of issues like latency and audio related networking. You can find the course by navigating to this address: https://tinyurl.com/y6ecz66r.

Finding New Collaborators

You may be collaborating long-distance because your favorite guitar player moved to Tallahassee, or you may even be doing remote collaborations because your drummer had a baby and can only record at his house while you’re at work, but more than likely, you’re looking to branch out and find new people to work with.

There are as many ways to find new partners as there are new partners, but there are some tried and true methods. First, you can meet people when you’re out in the world at a conference, or touring with your metal cello quartet, or whatever it is you do.

You might also meet people on Facebook groups. There are hundreds of Facebook groups dedicated to production. You might also find new people on LinkedIn, Twitter or other social networks. And of course, you may find new collaborators by opening up your projects to others as mentioned above.

Another option is to search for players on platforms like SoundBetter.com or even Fiverr or UpWork. There’s even a cool service called Audio Hunt (theaudiohunt.com) which can pair you up with gear owners so you can run your tracks through that coveted analog compressor or tube preamp you just can’t afford.

The thing to remember in all these cases is that you want to vet people and make sure the working relationship will be good. It may be a good idea to get to know a person for a while, check out their work, interact with them in a public forum like a Facebook group, and maybe even meet them in real life at a conference before you decide to work together.

Even you don’t take a bunch of time, you want to talk business first, or at least very early in the process. Make sure everything is clear up front and you’re on the same page about the project. Is it your act? Theirs? A duet? Who will be allowed to pitch the track, and who will control distribution? What are the master rights splits and what are the songwriting splits? How do you want to handle a third party who may come in to contribute? Define everyone’s rights and responsibilities ahead of time so that there are no surprises and put it in writing.

Music may be just a hobby to some of your partners (or to you), but it’s also a business, and though it may be tedious, getting the paperwork out of the way ahead of time will save you a lot of trouble in the long run. Plus, talking business first can help weed out shady people before you go too far down the road. Once that’s out of the way, you can let the creative juices flow, and being open-minded about your partner’s contribution is usually the best way to go about things.

A Small World

It really is a small, connected world. Before writing this, I sat on my back patio looking at flowers, cats and bees, relaxing back while I nonchalantly discussed arrangement changes to a new song over Facebook Messenger with a collaborator who is 1000 miles away. Using my phone, I was able to send him a rough mix through Box.com and without breaking a sweat or leaving my lunch, I had all his notes and ideas, ready for the afternoon session.

Working remotely will never replace the vibe of multiple people creating together in the studio, and it doesn’t have to. But it’s a great way to open new options, keep connected to great partners who travel or move, and in general just add a whole new flavor to the process of making tracks. Perhaps you’ll be my next collaborator!

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I live in Albuquerque, NM, but it doesn’t matter. I use Cakewalk, MixBus and Ableton but that doesn’t matter either. Find me to present a collaborative idea at aaron @ aarontrumm.com or on Facebook @AaronJTrumm.

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