Feature: Leicester's Record Labels and recording Studios 2011

With over 350 live bands based in Leicester/shire, you would think that some of them would be worth signing to Record Labels. So are there any local Labels? Artsin has set out to find them.

30th September

New record label specialises in folk and roots

A new Leicester record label specialises in folk and roots music. Information is available from their web site Annson Records.

27th June

Artsin visits Yellow Bean Studios.

Situated right at the end of Western Road, Yellow Bean Studios has become a desirable haunt for a variety of top Leicester bands. Offering 12 rehearsal rooms and a fully equipped recording room, Yellow Bean comes with another valuable asset: Jono.

Jon O'Neil is an auspicious mover on the Leicester music scene. He looks after notable acts such as The Dandilions and I Am In Love (aka Autohype.) Band manager, promoter and music guru, his wide knowledge of the music industry adds a lot of value to the clients of Yellow Bean.

Jon O'Neil at work on the mixing desk

When it was called Rain Studios it used to be in Nottingham. Two years ago studio bosses decided to move to Leicester. Now installed not far from Narborough Road, Yellow Bean provides residential rehearsal rooms which can be rented out on a monthly basis.

Once recordings have been laid down, engineers mix and master at broadcast quality. If a band wants to replicate a CD in quantity, they have reputable firms they can recommend.

The control console for the recording studio

I questioned Jono about copyright and legal issues with the ownership of tracks and recordings. He is not a music lawyer but he knows some top people that are. It's an area of music management small unsigned bands rarely worry about. Until of course, they start to move up the ladder and start making serious money.

Drum kit in the recording room

Jono understands live music; he know what makes the industry tick. When it comes to experience in live music and bands, Jon has more than most.

Find out more about Yellow Bean Studios from their web site. For bookings/enquiries contact Jono on 07801 837303 (mentioned you saw this in Artsin). Find out where it is located. Nearby on street parking is free after 6 p.m.

If all this wasn't enough, Music Photographer Amy Brammall has a studio in the building. See Amy Brammall's web site.

20th May

Leicester's Horus Music

Based in the vicinity of St. Marks Church, just off Belgrave Gate and not far from Leicester College, Horus Music is the biggest music agency in Leicester. Having been established in 2006, it's also one of the longest established.

The people at Horus Music take pride in being open to their artists and making it easy for them to get in touch. Music comes across as a helpful and friendly crew. If you go to the Music website the first thing you read is 'Help for bands.'

In the photo: Tom Andrews, Nick Dunn, Anila Mariong, Florian Philippe.

I went down to their new offices to find out who they are what they do. CEO Nick Dunn sat me down on a large comfortable sofa in the spacious, airy office and talked to me about Horus and the music industry. I've known Nick for a few years now; we met when we were on the judging panel of a national band competition. He strikes me as someone who really knows what it's all about.

What stood out for me about Horus Music is their desire to work with and support acts rather than taking them over and controlling them. So what kind of music do they work with? Horus Music is not a genre-specialist agency; they will deal with any kind of music. The main stay of their roster, however, is rock and pop. They know what sells and if a band and their songs are good enough to make it they will take them on.

Distribution and Publishing

The main activity of Horus is distribution. Nick told me that Horus is a music services company and they also get involved in publishing. Distribution is different from publishing. Publishing includes the legal control of copyright and being able to secure the royalties that attach to a song.

The strength of Horus lies in working with an act to market their 'assets'. A song becomes an asset when it is has rights attached to it and this is true both for music and lyrics. The assets they deal with can be either digital or physical. Assets are songs and tunes that can be sold either on the Internet or through retail outlets.

The rights to a song are central to it commercial value. Horus Music works closely with some artists but this varies a lot. Some bands have a lot of contact with the staff; others less so. Horus is neither a record label nor a management agency. Nick prefers to call it a music services company. "We also operate partially as a record label and management company, but not fully exclusive in those areas", he said.

Sales and Marketing

Marketing is a key aspect of distribution. It's very hard to get physical products into stores like, for example, HMV. So will the large chains accept products from local, unsigned bands? Shelf space on the high street is limited. Local stores might take a CD in towns where a band is playing, when doing a tour, if they know there is going to be interest in that appearance. It's necessary to pick tour destinations carefully, if a band wants to be successful in selling its products.

It's always a good idea to look at the retail outlets in a town and also the local radio stations, when considering it as a tour destination. The mainstay of sales still tends to be sales of CDs and other products at shows. If a band is playing, they are going to be surrounded by their existing customers, their fans and, hopefully, by plenty of new customers.

People hear a band for the first time and want to take away a disk that they can play at home to remind them of this really good band they heard. CDs are a great medium for marketing at shows. For most bands, digital downloading is a major part of distribution and sales. Not just the song tracks but also lyrics and album artwork.

These are things that also need to be delivered to the music press as well as to the fans. Even with digital, fans can still get the images and the words when they download the tracks.

A new development is in the pipeline.

Horus Music is developing a new online platform that will enable rostered bands to upload tracks. This will speed up the process of making new products available to the market. In the fast-moving music industry this can be all important. The other advantage is that acts can have more control over their assets. The new Horus system will also create a searchable database of assets.

Responding to what bands need

There are several roles normally associated with successful acts: a press agent, a radio plugger, a good accountant and a bank manager who understands what the band needs, a manager and a person or group who organises the fans.

Artists want a one-stop-shop, a central facility that will pull together a range of services into one package. I asked if Horus gets involved in shows and whether there a need for '360 degree marketing', in which ticket sales and recorded products are packaged together?

Nick thinks there has been a recent move away from the 360 approach. Nick explained: "They have only recently in the last couple of years started moving into 360 models, but each has a different focus on what is important, for example, a focus on merchandise and acquisition of management companies etc." A '360 deal' is one in which a label has rights in all an act's commercial activities, from record sales through to ticket sales and merchandise and is sometimes referred to as a 'multiple rights deal.' The major labels (EMI, Sony, Warner,etc.) still dominate the music market and they are still in the 360 model of working.

So, how do acts sell their music? If a song is going to do well it must be played on radio stations. Horus Music use 'pluggers' to promote pre-release songs with radio DJs. Nick comments: "DJs have less independence now, unlike a few years ago. Today a lot of stations are controlled by the same head of music in London, where as in the past most stations used to have some flexibility in being able to introduce local content or songs the DJ preferred. Today there are very little options for the DJ and producers."

Bands need to understand how DJs assemble their play lists; this is central to being successful at getting air time for a song. Pluggers are companies that have really good contacts with radio DJs; it is after all the mainstay of their business. We have to start with radio play and in this, the BBC is dominant. Getting air time on Radio 1, 2 and 6 will be fairly crucial to the success of an act. Getting played on BBC radio is about climbing the ladder. The regional stations are also fairly important. Regional and some local independent stations can be important, especially when an act is planning a tour.

Acts should keep records of all their radio plays; being able to present a radio play history is important to press packs and this is also true of support slots. Many acts fail to keep their press packs updated with facts about when they have had radio plays and who they have played support slots with.

This is however what the music industry wants to know. Acts are not limited to the UK. British music is still doing well in the United States. Brit Pop is still a very marketable product in the 'States. Germany is another country in which UK music is doing well, both recorded and ticket sales. Some bands have got deals in Japan but not in the UK.

It all starts with the music

Having good music is of course the starting point. A band with a set of samey tunes is not going anywhere. Popular music has always relied on memorable songs. Too many local bands have songs that are instantly forgettable. The history of popular music is about memorable tunes. Bands should be recording new songs on a regular basis. Radio DJs and the music press are likely to remember a band if something new pops up in front of them on a regular basis. How regular? It depends on how active the song writers are but it could be as little as six weeks between recordings, for a really busy band that is rising.

These songs might have been recorded all at one session but then fed out, one track at a time. This is more likely to keep an act's name in front of people than releasing a set of songs all at once.

Most recording studios will offer a fairly good standard of equipment. What is more important is being able to secure the services of a music producer. It's the producer rather than the recording engineers who will make a good track. Music has good working relationships with some top producers. As is often the case in the music industry, it's not what you know but who you know ...

The Horus Music website | Help for bands

Other pages you might like: Tom Robinson's guide to radio pluggers

5th May

Yard26 is a notable studio for Urban and Rock recordings. Artsin went there to check them out

An easy place to find, right next door to the Musician venue, this is a bright airy studio with some well experienced people and lineup of names to their credits.

Having opened in Jan 2010, the studio has worked with a range of bands and artists, about 50/50 rock and urban. Phil, who works with the rock side of things, previously worked in a Nottingham studio has has worked in Maida Vale. Adam has a long track record with Urban music, having started out with a home kit when he was just 11. His artists include hip-hop, RnB, baseline and much more. These guys have worked with big names such as Luke Bingham, Shellys Soljaz ... together they can drop a serious lineup of names.

Their digital desk supports recording, mixing and mastering and includes a Logic Pro 9 system and a Tascam DM-3200 Digital Mixing Console.

Apart from their recording work, the guys also get involved in video shoots and were involved in the recent mega-viral Andrew Lansley rap video. Bands to have recorded there recently include Hybrid Trend, Some May Run, Victory Gin and others.

Yard26 has an introductory offer: £200 for 2 days studio time or £110 for a single day, including engineering, mixing and mastering, available to new bands and acts coming in.

Apart from the control room (pictured above), there is also a well equipped live room which includes a full drum kit.

Yard 26 web site | Yard26 on Facebook

Yard26 is at Unit 30, Crafton Street West, Leicester, LE1 2DE. Find them on the map.

View Larger Map Rock: phone Phil on 07534 593 623, Urban phone Adam 07512 082 874.

4th May

Scarzy Records work with urban artists. Check out their songs on SoundCloud. See them on Myspace. Listen to tracks on YouTube.

9th March

In the first part of our article, we look at Leicester based indie label, Telescope Records with Baz Randall:

Telescope Records began a few years ago at the end of a playing career and a desire to make people sit back and listen to Leicester music. We have a very talented city, with tons of bands and artists across the full spectrum of genres.

I work with artists of all levels, realising that it's so difficult for bands, musicians and artists to escape from the local scene mentality and from the vulturous promoters that see an act pulling people in, then swamp them with offers for no money and basically squeeze the innocence out of them.

The label has some great people working behind the scenes and we work on a large range of packages, starting from development for new enthusiastic acts that we feel have potential to go on to a higher level right through to the releasing of records by established acts.

We work with a number of the country's leading PR, Radio Plugging, Promotions and Legal Companies as well as links to national and regional radio stations and magazines, not only in the UK but in Europe and the USA.

The Screening

Our artists include Leicester's The Screening who were our first signing, last year and are enjoying some success with the singles they released last year, getting national press coverage. They are also doing great in Europe, playing large venues to sold out crowds and they are also looking to move in to USA later this year.

Modern faces

On the management side we are working with a great young band from Dunfermline, Scotland called Modern Faces and a band from New York City called The Twees. We have high hopes for both these bands.

There's also lots of development work being done across the city and we are working with an Urban Act called J1 who has some great hip-hop pop songs that have attracted the interest of Ministry of Sound amongst others. He is readying to make a real push this summer and I really like a young act from leicester called Formal Warning who, with some professional guidance, to go with their unrivalled enthusiasm, could be punching way above their current weight.

As for Leicester and our exports, you very rarely go up the M1 without seeing one of our city's acts. As well as The Screening, we really like Little Night Terrors and SuperEvolver, who are both awesome. Charely and the Martyrs are another great band and Minnaars are another band, way above the local music scene level.

The list goes on really doesn't it? If anyone is looking for professional representation then we'd like to hear from them. Just get in touch and we'll be glad to speak to you.

The Twees

The Screening | Modern Faces | The Twees

You can find out more about Telescope Records from their web site.