Music industry career please answer

Question

Hi im a 16 year old music producer and i would like to have contact with record labels . But How ?

Do i have to get a manager and where in London can you find one ?

Can you please tell me the best hip hop record labels in london ?

Whats the chance to breake through as a producer in UK

What does Pigfactory publishing do ? Like if i get a contract are they paying for your music you make ?

cheers

Answer 1

Wow.

The first thing to understand is that the music industry is changing and will never be the same.  One of the things that's happening is that the 'big labels' are drying up and dying--deservedly so.

That's not to say that you can't get to be a producer--bands will still need people with musical taste, a sense of public expectations, and technical savvy.  But as we go further away from Sony-Warner-BMG-Atlantic-London, and more toward indie labels and pay-what-you-want downloads and I-tunes, those major labels are going to be less likely to employ house producers and more likely to enter into distribution deals with bands that self-produce.

So you're going to have to market yourself directly to bands, I think.

Add to that, the big producers more and more are also performers.  Who wouldn't want DangerMouse to take a break from Gnarls and captain their next studio effort?

So your best shot is this:

--Educate yourself thoroughly.  Learn as much as you can about studio production, sound board operation, technical stuff.

--Learn to play--particularly keyboards.  Danger and Visconti and Alan Parsons and all those guys were ready to lay down some keys for their artists if asked.

--Get involved in the live scene.  Run sound professionally.  Play in your own band.  Get computer software like Acid and self-produce your own indie albums.  Network with musicians--pop music after all is a 'people' business and the more people you know, the more gigs you get.

--Keep your pulse on the industry.  Whatever I'm writing today may be out of date next week.