adewild1-blog

[adewild1-blog]

Latest Musical Activities

Hi, haven't been here for a while, I know I'm a bit tardy! Anyways, just to fill you in on my latest musical activities. I released my 2nd single recorded at "Ade's Attic" on 17th September. The song is entitled "Crying To The Sky". It's a re-working of an old song I used to sing to my children when they were infants! It's a Southern style Country Rocker, with lots of twin slide guitar throughout. It's available to purchase a s a digital download at Bandcamp, and is also available on all of the major streaming platforms. Hope you can find the time to take a listen and maybe leave me some feedback.

I've got a few releases planned for the coming months. My next release is a comedy Christmas single "The Christmas Mince Pie Song", which is due out on 26th November 2021. It's a bit cheesy, but is very melodic and has lots going on, including Choirs and strings and Church and sleigh bells. Will start promo for this in the next couple of weeks.

Then I'm going to release another Pop/Rock single in December. And finally my 2nd solo album early in 2022.

[adewild1-blog]

“Pandemic” Released Globally!

So my latest single "Pandemic" was released on 16th May 2021, no clues as to what the song is about, but it's a ROCKER!  It's the1st track track I've released that has been recorded solely in my home recording studio "Ade's Attic".  It's also the 1st Protest/WTF is going on song that I've released.  Don't worry though, I'm now going back to writing depressing ballads about lost loves and such!  

The Track features myself on all Guitars, Bass guitar, and all Vocals.  It was recorded at "Ade's Attic", but sent out to Towpath Studios for mixing and mastering by Mike Hopkins, who also added some synths in to the mix.

The fantastic artwork was designed and created by my talented son Sam Wilding.  

Pandemic is available now from Bandcamp: https://adewilding.bandcamp.com/track/pandemic

and all major digital streaming platforms.

For those of you who may be interested here's the lyrics:-

Pandemic

Well we've been caught in a Pandemic Everyone's feeling apathetic Whether we live is academic to us now Well we've been caught in a Pandemic Everyone's feeling apathetic Whether we live is academic to us now Where do we even start To take everything apart And get to the bottom of what's going on Conspiracy theories widespread But Millions of people still dead Does anybody really know what's going on Suffering from insomnia Bordering on Hysteria Feeling so melancholic Gonna end up an alcoholic Well we've been caught in a Pandemic Everyone's feeling apathetic Whether we live is academic to us now Well we've been caught in a Pandemic Everyone's feeling apathetic Whether we live is academic to us now Self-serving Politicians Dubious acquisitions They've stuck their fingers in all the pies This virus is just their Cash Cow Go clap for the NHS now There's nothing to see here just close your eyes Don't even talk to me About the economy Capitalism's dead Shot itself in the head Well we've been caught in a Pandemic Everyone's feeling apathetic Whether we live is academic to us now Well we've been caught in a Pandemic Everyone's feeling apathetic Whether we live is academic to us now

Credits

Released May 16, 2021 Music and Lyrics: Ade Wilding All guitars and vocals: Ade Wilding Synths: Mike Hopkins Sampled Drums: Toontrack EZDrummer2 Recorded by Ade Wilding at "Ade's Attic". Mixed and mastered by Mike Hopkins at Towpath Studios, Sebastopol, South Wales. Artwork designed and created by Sam Wilding

©️  all rights reserved

[adewild1-blog]

This is an official notice from #adewilidngmusic “PANDEMIC” is coming! 16th May 2021.  You have been warned! 

[adewild1-blog]

My debut solo album released 13th June 2020. Go take a listen, you might even like it!  Music makes the world a better place. 😊🙏🐠🎸

#adewildingmusic

[adewild1-blog]

Just Another Indy Muso Trying To Break Even (Part 3)

#adewildingmusic

So here it is, the last part of my long-winded whine about the unfair way in which modern Indie Musicians are treated by the big bully boys (no need to mention them, you know who they are by now)!

So at the end of my last blog I told you that I’d give you some indications of Outgoings v Incoming money, that I’ve earned from the release of my debut solo album “Ghosts Of My Past”.  

It’s actually a bit tricky to quantify the actual outgoings, especially when you take into consideration the amount of time it takes takes to write each song to begin with. Also every song is different so will take an alternative amount of time to record engineer and produce! 

Lets say for arguments sake that it took 2 hours to write each song (in reality it could take anywhere from 20 mins to 20 years!.)  Any normal profession would charge an hourly rate.  So if I say, again for the sake of arguments that I charge a very reasonable rate of £20 per hour.  There are 12 songs on the album, so that’s 24hrs of my time x £20 per hour = £480.  

Then there’s the time spent actually recording each song.  Again I’ll have to round this up to an average number. I think 10 hours per song is a reasonable amount of time, my songs are pretty simple affairs musically, so usually just involve recording me singing the main melody and two or three backing vocal parts, and an average of four different guitar tracks.  So that's 12 tracks x 10 hours each = 120 Hours x £20 per hour = £2400.  

Other costs involved in the recording process will usually include session musicians.  I only used one session musician, that was a Bass Guitarist who played on all 12 songs on the album. Luckily for me he did it as a favour, but for the purpose of illustration I will say that he also charged £20 per hour and spent 2 Hours per track, i.e., 1 hour to work out and rehearse the bass lines and 1 hour to record them (yeah I know he’s very quick for a Bass Guitarist!).  So again that’s 12 songs x 2 hours = 24 x £20 = £480.  

Now we come to the fees for the mechanics of the recording, this could be split up into the actual Recording Process, Mixing, which is very basically to get the right balance of the different sounds, and Mastering, which is again very basically to make sure that the volume levels are OK for playback on various devices and radio etc.  

Very often this might be done by a number of different people and at a number of different places or businesses.

In my case the album was recorded, mixed and mastered at the same studio and by the same Engineer.  This is where it gets a bit tricky for me, as again the owner of the studio is a personal friend of mine, so I got my album recorded at “Mates Rates”, which I’m not going to divulge. So for this exercise after checking out various UK recording studio prices I’m going to use £300 per day for the actual recording studio hire with an engineer, which again is a very reasonable price for a smaller studio. Expect to pay £1000+ for somewhere like “Rockfield”!  Each song would take approximately 1 day to record, so that’s 12 x £300 = £3600.

For the Mixing I’ve again looked at current UK prices charged and an average would seem to be about £30 per track. 12 x £30 = £360

Charges for Mastering seem to be somewhere about the same as the charges for mixing so that’s another 12 x £30 = £360

So let’s total it all up.  

My time for writing =  £480

My time for recording = £2400

Session Musician =  £480

Recording =  £3600

Mixing =  £360

Mastering =  £360

Total = £7680

Other costs that need to be considered, are Album Artwork, which in my case my son did for me and Artist Promotional pictures, which I did myself and actual artist promotion, which again I’m trying to do myself. So I haven’t added any costs, but if I had we would now be looking at a total outlay of around the £10,000 mark. 

I’ve not even mentioned the cost of the musical instruments and effects I’ve used in the recording and breakables such as guitar strings, guitar picks etc.

Ok, so now for the big reveal.  I used a company called “Distrokid” to distribute my album to all of the major Digital streaming platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon Napster etc, etc (that cost another $50 by the way). They then collect any monies paid to Spotify and hold it for you to be paid out on request.  

I released the album on 13th June 2020 and as of today 1st May 2021 (note that’s 1st May not the 1st April !) I have earned from all of these Digital Streaming Platforms combined the magnificent sum of:  $35 !  

 Yes you’ve read that correctly! $35 

Despite having well over 10,000 streams (just under 10,000 on Spotify alone).

So back to the Billionaire CEO of Spotify Daniel Ek, who let me remind you said that musicians need to release music more often to be successful, and that people who only release an album every 3 or 4 years aren’t going to cut it!  

Can someone explain to me how we are meant to be able to afford to release music more often when we are not getting paid a fair price for making it! 

I’m going to end it here, so that I can go and cry into my beer, but before I go, someone once asked me what I’d do if I won £1000,000. I replied I’d keep on making music until the money runs out! 

Thank you

Diolch yn fawr

[adewild1-blog]

Just Another Indy Muso Trying To Break Even (Part 2)

So how to promote the album without the live shows?  I turned to the only place I had a little experience of “Social Media”.  I advertised on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Facebook was a waste of time, I’m pretty sure they throttled back on my posts, basically because they wanted me to pay for advertising, which I eventually did. I had a voucher worth £15, so added the same amount to it and ran an advert for my album for a fortnight.  After which I received a message from Facebook that my advert had been run in “x” amount of Countries and been seen by ”X“00,000′s of people, the net outcome of which was, 2 new likes for my Facebook page!  Yay, that’ll put bread on the table!  Instagram for me seems to be just about posting nice pics, showing the world what a wonderful person you are and how everyone should be jealous of your perfect life!  Twitter has been much kinder, I’ve gone from 10 to 3105 followers since June 2020, and many of the people I’ve connected with have been like minded individuals from around the globe, and on the same path as myself.  On the whole Twitter people have been very supportive and helpful, but without being disrespectful, are not what I’d call “Only Fans”, I’d prefer to identify them as contemporaries as well as music fans.  

Ergo, how to reach the “Only Fans”?  You know, the ones that have to buy new music each week, that will buy your merch (if you can afford to set it up) and pay to go to your gigs wherever and whenever they are?  

Back we go to the “Digital Streaming Platforms”!  At the moment these seem to be one of the few ways to get your music out to the masses for the Indy Artists.  There’s a great deal being said presently with regards to streaming platforms, mainly Spotify, I suppose because they are the largest.  Firstly The CEO of Spotify Daniel Ek, who by the way is a Billionaire, says that musicians need to release music more often to be successful, that people who only release an album every 3 or 4 years aren’t going to cut it!   Yes I think I would agree in principle to those sentiments.  You do need to release music often to stay in the current and in the limelight. But I don’t think people like Mr Ek, and generally anyone who isn’t a struggling Indy musician, fully understand the catch 22 situation we find ourselves in.  Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to come up with a concept for a song, then write the lyrics and the music.  Be able to play the necessary instrumentation that the song calls for, then put all that down “on tape”, edit it, produce it then get it mixed and mastered. Then there’s the artwork and presentation to think about, and of course it will need to be promoted. 

These things cost money, and as with everything else in life you only get what you pay for.  On top of that the actual amount of money the artist is likely to earn per stream is unfortunately a great deal less than a pittance.  I’d go as far as to say it’s near criminal!   There’s currently a debate going on in Parliament with regards to music streaming and the remuneration system that it currently employs .  Check out @MrTomGray and @KevinBrennanMP on Twitter for an insight in to this matter.

I’ll�� also give you an example of where I’m at with regards to outgoings v incomings in my next instalment.  Get your violins ready and keep the tissues handy!

Continued in  “ Just Another Indy Muso Trying To Break Even (Part 3)”, coming soon!

[adewild1-blog]

Just Another Indy Muso Trying To Break Even (Part 1)

I have been involved with the music business in one form or another from the late 70’s until the present day, purely as an Amateur or Hobbyist if you like.  Playing in numerous bands over the years as a guitarist/vocalist, and covering many genres of music.  I’ve also written my own music from about the age of 16, but I’d never seemed to be able to find the time to do anything with my original material, which had been piling up in my head over the years.  Fast forward to hell of 2020, which had put a stop to most of my musical activities, but allowed me to concentrate on what I’d hoped may be some sort of solo musical career.  With this in mind I decided to take a bunch of songs that I’d recorded over the past 18 months and put them on general release.

My debut solo album “Ghosts of my Past” was totally self-funded and was recorded solely at “Towpath Studios” in Sebastopol, South Wales by Mike Hopkins, who also Mixed and Mastered it, and with the help of my good friend and Bass Guitarist Wayne Morgan.  All songs were self-penned, most of them were written between the ages of 19 to 30, and were all inspired by my musical heroes The Beatles, Peter Frampton and Jimi Hendrix, to name but a few, hopefully I’ve done them justice.

This album went on general release on 13th June 2020.  It was done a bit hastily, I didn’t really put much thought into organising promotion etc. as Initially the idea was to promote the album through a series of gigs over the following year.  Obviously that idea was swamped by the Covid/Lockdown situation.  So I just wanted to get the album out.  I used a distribution company called “Distrokid” to do this, who for a fee, will handle the distribution of your musical releases to all of the major “Digital Streaming Platforms”, you know the culprits, “Spotify”, “iTunes”, “Amazon Music” etc. 

Continued in  “ Just Another Indy Muso Trying To Break Even (Part 2)”, coming soon!