studioreport UNITED KINGDOM Confessions from a dance floor
Last month, Alchemea College and Sample Magic hosted the first London Electronic Music Event, a
weekend of demos and talks for upcoming dance producers and artists. PSNEurope’s Nick Beck was there to absorb the know-how of the professionals…
“STAY PASSIONATE about what you are trying to achieve and if you are going to go for it, DO IT!”
An inspirational closing
remark from Toolroom Records director and co-founder Stuart Knight at the ‘How to create a Music Brand’ Q&A session at the first London Electronic Music Event in February. Not that the audience of engineers, producers, performers and dance enthusiasts were lacking in passion – crammed, as we are, into Alchemea’s teaching studios for a weekend of workshops, business seminars and Q&A sessions with electronic music’s most respected names. The LEME organisers (loop and sample creators Sample Magic working alongside Alchemea staff) have lined up an impressive number of subject areas today: everything from mastering, and album cover design, to getting the most from SoundCloud, and understanding how to stage a live electronic music show. So what to go for? Options
are many but it’s easy to follow a particular thread or stream over
Alchemea’s Mike Sinnott, sales and marketing co-ordinator Peter Barter and freelance trainer Gary Bromham
the weekend. I decide that understanding music brands, along with more practical advice, will be the route to go down. Let’s see if I can’t turn my music brand into a real live act…
Seminars labelled ‘The PR Machine – Working the Blogs’, ‘Branding & Design 101’ and
‘How to make Money in the Music Industry’ open our eyes early in the course to the many ways in which it IS possible to make money from music: through royalties or licensing to TV commercials or corporate video (though we joke about the latter being deemed “selling out” and being advised not
to speak of it should we go down that route, no matter how profitable!). There are some ideas for
revenue generation, but what about practical production tips? Bruce Aisher – an Alchemea lecturer as well as a music producer and one half of Brancaccio & Aisher – takes us