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As an artist we want our music, songs, tracks to be performed live by us personally in the form of singing, playing a dj set, etc. Performing is about getting your act other there for people to take notice. It’s about the presentation of your skills to an audience.

The artist manager guides the professional career of the artist and oversees their day-to-day business affairs. The manager will advise and counsel their artists concerning professional matters, long-term plans and personal decisions which may affect their career, as well as overseeing administrative organization (book-keeping, paying bills etc.)

Typical day to day duties will include: Helping his artists with major career decisions; finding investors in the form of record companies and publishers, negotiating contracts etc. Promoting the artist by overseeing the artist's PR and general publicity. Developing an artist and helping with the creative process. This can take the form of sourcing a producer for the artist, performing an 'A&R' function by choosing which songs to record or which band member to hire etc. Helping to assemble a team around the artist, including hiring accountants, tour managers, and agents, even cleaners for when you're away! Essentially, being the gatekeeper between the artist and the wider world!

How do mangers get paid? Generally artists managers work for the artists are they do not get the usual monthly salary of a certain amount but they get commission based on all of the income of their artists at a rate of 20%. These commissions include record company advances and royalties, publishing company advances and royalties, merchandising company advances and royalties, PRS & MCPS payments (that do not get paid to a publisher), appearance fess on Live Shows, TV appearances as well as creative commission fees from autobiographies and articles.

Music Publishing Companies make deals with songwriters and promote the songs their songwriters compose to musicians and anyone else who may need a song for whatever reason (advertising, a movie, a promotional campaign, etc.) They issue licenses for the use of the songs they represent and collect licensing fees.

They are different types of publishing companies. The Major Publishing Companies are Warner/Chappell Music, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Then we have Independent Publishing Companies such as Kobalt Music Group and Imagem.

Music Publishers are companies that are interested in acquiring and exploiting the copyrights in compositions. They do not sign recording artist and they do not make records, shoot videos or commission remixes. They simply sign up writers (who may or may not be recording artists in their own right) and songs, collect money that’s generated by the use of their songs and occasionally help to place songs in adverts, movies and TV programs.

Talking about copyrights we have two of such - The copyright that exists in the recording and the copyright that exists in the composition. Publishing Companies are interested in the copyright that exists in the composition.

Record labels are companies that manufacture and distribute recorded music and promote that music (or at least hire people to handle the promotion). There are two kinds of record labels major (the big three labels – Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment/Sony Music and Warner Music Group) and independent labels (indie labels – Rough Trade, Big Machine Records and Syco Music).

How do we differentiate between major and independent labels? We need to understand that a major label commands a high percentage of the annual sales of records and has their own distribution system whereas an independent label is funded independently and is not connect to any of the big three major labels.

Having said that there are pros and cons both being in a major and independent label. When an artist signs to a major label, he can expect that there are more funds ready for him to work with as compared to an independent label where it has lesser funds for the artist to work with. Apart from funds, a major label has relatively more employees as compared to an independent label and thus the artist might find it difficult to have close personal relationships with people of the higher management. On the other hand artists that signs to a major label will realize that the rights to their music will be controlled fully by the label as supposed to an independent label where artists get the rights to their music.

Within a label there are many roles that people acquire. Firstly we have the CEO (chief executive officer) who is in charge of the business of the whole company and are responsible for making decision and coming up with strategies for the company. Sometimes the CEO and the Chairman are the same person. Next we have the Managing Director/President where his main duty is to focus on the overall direction of the label alongside with the CEO: what type of artists to sign, methods of marketing, and most of all having the final say and approval over each departments’ dad to da operations. What I’ve just covered is considered the higher-level management of the company.

In a label there’s many different departments comprising A&R (Artist & Repertoire), Promotion, Artist Development, Marketing, Publicity Department, New Media. What does A&R stands for? A&R basically stands for Artist & Repertoire and is considered of the most important departments of the whole label. A label needs artists that will make good music and eventually music that sells well so that the label makes money however if there’s no A&R department then a label might as well close down because a label is artist driven. The main role of the A&R department is to scout, find and report new talent to the label so that the label can sign new artists that the label think will be beneficial to them. Within A&R we have three groups of people, firstly the A&R Scouts who is at the bottom of the hierarchy. A&R Scouts are the person that goes on to the Internet to find and scout new artists. They will also go to artists’, bands’ live shows to decide whether they have the potential to be signed to the label. After the Scouts we then have the A&R Manager where basically the information being researched by the Scouts are handed over to the Managers for further review and to decide whether to sign the artist and negotiate the deal, it’s the manager job to get the rest of the department at the label interested  in the artist, presenting to the PR and promotions people. Lastly the Head of A&R will set the overall policy for the label  and may take part in decisions about high profile or new artists.

Artist Development is also another important department of the label that needs to be managed properly. Sometimes a label will decide to sign an artist that has needs to be developed even more before going for live shows, tours and recording music. This is the department that a new artist that’s just signed to a label will go to. In this department there are high profile people in the industry that will teach and nurture new talents to reach their potential before releasing records.

Part 1 of making a TB303 Acid House style sound, programmed using Ableton's Analog and incorporates other effects, such as Redux, Overdrive, Utility, and Ping Pong