For those actually in the business, is this pretty much spot on? I wouldn't know because I've never made it in the business at any level. But it does make me wonder how much more difficult it is today than it was back during my era when synthesizer was barely a word in the dictionary.Many of us made great livings from doing remixes for promo records of the mainstream pop bands, Spice Girls, All Saints, Five etc etc. The model worked great, a pop band made a track and sent it to the radio stations 6 weeks in advance of release (UK). We then made dance versions of that track for DJ's to play in nightclubs and dance music stations 6 weeks before release to help market the track to a wider audience. Everyone in the chain got paid well and it worked for years. Fast forward to now. Once the record companies realized no one was buying music, they decided to sell out artists very cheaply to the streaming services and make the artists sign 360 deals on every single bit of income they made. Essentially, the record companies pimped out the artists to Spotify etc in order to gain a decent percentage of streaming revenue, but leaving the artists virtually penniless. So the question is this. Why would an artist pay a pro mastering engineer 300 pounds a track when they cannot make a penny back in profit. It makes sense for most to use IZotope or whatever, mastering engineers are expensive, our old mastering engineer drove a BMW M3! Steaming has killed the business and artists just get screwed from all angles these days. The golden era is over and I feel sorry for those trying to make a living in this day and age.
It is pretty sad if this is indeed the reality today.
ShawnG
