How Do Contracts Stop Selective Memory?

Why do many people in the music industry make the same mistakes that eventually cost them thousands if not millions of dollars?

Many recording artists, managers and independent record labels are putting their careers and business agreements in jeopardy. They are meeting the right people, and they come to reasonable compromises with their business associates. They think that they have a deal completed, but they usually forget one major ingredient.

What Is The Missing Ingredient?

They do not put their business agreements in writing. If you do not have a contract for your business agreement, it usually does not exist in most situations especially in the music industry. You should always have a contract for all of your music industry related business agreements and compromises.

How Does A Contract Protect Me?

A contract protects you if your business associate does not remember making a commitment to you or your company. Anyone can totally deny a handshake agreement when it is convenient for the person to do so. A convenient loss of memory cannot help a person deny an agreement when you have his/her signature on a contract.

You need to understand a few important things when it comes to selective memory and contracts.

SELECTIVE MEMORY POINT 1: SOME PEOPLE WILL NOT SIGN CONTRACTS

Many people in the music industry will make you small promises. These promises will not require contracts. You will be in an inferior position because you must depend on a person keeping his/her word.

Are Your Prepared For The Worst?

In these situations, you should always expect to be lied to. You are now mentally and emotionally prepared for disappointment if your business associate does not deliver on a promise when you do not expect him/her to. You are prepared to find another solution for your problems if things go wrong when you are always prepared for the worst case scenario.

The Good News

If you are prepared for the worse, you can only be surprised when a person in the music industry keeps his word. Enough people will lie to you that you will enjoy when you are pleasantly surprised.

SELECTIVE MEMORY POINT 2: A CONTRACT IS PROOF NOT A COMMAND

A contract only proves that you and your business partner have an agreement. It does not make anyone fulfill their contract obligations. People might still attempt to back out of your business agreements with them.

New Flash: The Length And Wording Of A Contract Does Not Matter!

Some people have the wrong idea about contracts. It does not matter if you have a contract with complicated legal terms, or you sign a simple, straight to the point contract. If people want to break their business agreements, they will do it.

Contracts Do Not Stop Crooks From Being Crooks

A thief will still attempt to steal from you even when he/she signed a contract saying that he/she cannot. A person might attempt to get out of his/her contract ahead of time even when the contact has a specific time limit.

How Artists Can Build A Home Studio From Scratch!

You want to record those great tunes you've written right? You have a band project going and you need a place to record your work? You got the material, but you need to record that demo for the record companies?

Well, building your own recording studio is a great place to start.

When you're based on computer recording, good audio recording software is essential. You need software that doesn't use up all the resources in your computer, but still has the power to get the job done.

You should look for audio recording software featuring:

Great quality, low latency, audio recording (16 bit, 24 bit or 32-bit-float at frequency 41000 Hz or higher)

Low latency midi recording (support for ASIO drivers)

Good mixing capabilities (i.e. multi tracking)

Good plugin support (VST/DX software synths and samplers, effects plugins)

Good Mixdown/Export capabilities (you should be able to export your final mix/recording to a high quality audio file which you can burn onto a CD, ship to a record company and get the deal of your dreams!)

Now onto the audio recording software:

In my opinion these are the most important things to look for in audio recording software.

The sound card (a.k.a. audio interface, sound interface) is one of the most important parts in your recording studio computer.

Audio interfaces handle the input and output of audio (and midi) to and from your computer. A few pieces of advice here on what to look for in a good audio interface for recording purposes.

The following benefits are what you should get out of great audio cards:

Support of great audio quality, both input and output.(24 bit, 96000 Hz, high quality audio)

Capability of low latency sustained recording of both audio and midi.

If you intend to use recording software like Cubase SX, the sound interface has to support ASIO drivers.

Among the variety of audio interfaces I can recommend the M-AUDIO Audiophile 24/96 for any home recording environment.

In recent years the USB and Firewire external audio interfaces have grown to be of good quality as well. So if you plan on using your laptop as a studio computer, or you simply don't have any PCI slots to spare in your computer, this would be the way to go.