Anyone tried Sonicbids? Taxi?

[adorian]

After registering for South by Southwest through Sonicbids our band got a few months free membership and I wanted to check what your opinions are on this site.
Sonicbids Connects Bands & Music Promoters- Book Gigs and Bands at Sonicbids
So far everything seems like a pay-to-play which seems to lean towardsthe old old trick just watered down a little bit in smaller $ amounts.

After registering for SWSX I am looking that my profile had 2 plays which I did myself so on my end it seems like SWSX didn't even make it there to listen to the material to reject us.

Taxi - I've had a few friends register and none of them got anythign positive out of it.
TAXI: record deals, publishing deal, film TV placement, recording your music, songwriting

Anyway - what do you think overall, if you have any positive/negative experience I'd appreciate more details.

[richiebee]

in my limited experience as a spectator, sonic bids works and taxi doesn't.

[Ruzz]

I use both.

So far only taxi has resulted in a positive and tangible result - ie an instrumental track forwarded for Film/TV.

I can also say, if you have a band, there are monthly listings of labels looking to promote new bands (something I'm not - I aint new and I aint a band ).

Also, I find taxi's song/production reviews useful.

Ruzz

[maestoso]

one thing about taxi is they are looking for the blow your mind, what the hell is this super mega hit i am listening to songs. they have good feedback and constructive criticism, but over all they make sense and why not? if you get forwarded it could be huge, look at crossfade.

[EnSkorSang]

Pretty much any website that advertises promotion/record deals for any unsigned artist, allowing you to just sign up isnt really good for 95% or artists. They dont really care about band development etc etc just the one big song. If you really want a career as an artist/band then headway is going to be made through meeting people in the business, sellling your personailty aswell as your music and through companies who generally dont advertise their services. Look on the back on your favourite CDs and google some of the names. Chances are you will find a page that merely tells you who they are, who they represent and that they dont accept unsolicited demos.
To have ANY short lived success with these online companies such as taxi, you need to spend months sat at your computer signing up to just about everyone there is, and maybe a bit of money will trickle through. Much better to get out there and meet people, hang round the offices with demos.

[brandondrury]

This is always a tricky topic. By default, Taxi and others are only going to be successful a very small percentage of the time. These companies are much like Casinos as they cash in on your willingness to go for the jackpot. Everyone wants to write the NFL theme song and get paid a $1,000,000 to do it. However, in the end, there are only so many slots available.

What gets me is when I do have the unfortunate experience of being in a home where they play some vial scum show like CSI, the music they play is seldom even close to barely interesting. I don't mean to stick my nose in the air, but it's the kind of thread here at Recording Reviews where no one comments because there is nothing to say about a tune. That's how the world works, I guess.

I wish there was a good way to test these Taxi places. I wish you had a proven hit song somehow (maybe with time machine technology) and you submitted it to TAXI. Would it get anywhere?

Brandon

[adorian]

I am almost tempted to go for something like say an AC/DC or Scorpions hit and see if it gets anywhere, or at least receives the same template answer that the regular submissions get, but it would be copyright infringement.

[Ruzz]

Originally Posted by adorian

I am almost tempted to go for something like say an AC/DC or Scorpions hit and see if it gets anywhere, or at least receives the same template answer that the regular submissions get, but it would be copyright infringement.

I've never received a template answer from taxi. I'm sometimes surprised at how closely they've studied the material to be able to make the comments they make.

With taxi, you need to pay extra attention to the "is this song on target for this listing" comments. If you aim a song at a particular listing and it's not on target they'll let you know - and why.

Ruzz

[jpeek345]

It depends on where you are.
If you do indeed write the NFL theme and you made a $1,000,000 off of it, how would that affect your life?

1.Seriously

2.Humorously

Hugh Laurie, from 'House' sincerely wants to be in a successful band.
He's had to reconcile recently (Jay Leno May 2008) but I think the sincerity is still there.
Russell Crowe wants to be taken seriously as a singer in his band.
Keanu Reeves wanted to be taken seriously in 'DogStar' - his band.

All these guys had buckets of fame (not to mention money) already and they wanted to be appreciated or recognized in a different way even though, you, me and my grandmas dog knew them already- but as something else...

What do you want from all of this (thread topic and beyond)? Write it down... obey it -like religion. (..hmm whats this? -a short pointy, hand-held object I press down on a paper and it comes out with symbols I can actually recognize??.. Holy s***, what an invention!!)

If you write to this point successfully- you will be lead by a voice that you will phasically (as in "a phase") deny, but will be in your own handwriting...

Then refamiliarize yourself with your original goal(s).
They may need to be modified or adapted.

Not lessened- not in any way, just crystalized.

paz,

Jay

[TonyB]

Good discussion. I was recently at a songwriting forum on Nashville and this was a hot discussion. The forum had a few owners of music publishing companies. Taxi is more or less a music publishing company. What they said is that it's a numbers game to find that one song; almost like finding a needle in a haystack.

Their philosophy is to have a very large catalog of songs (which Taxi does) slightly increasing the possibility of digging out that hit song. The numbers? The common numbers they threw around (including Paul Worley who "discovered", developed, and produced Lady Antebellum's debut CD) was that it takes about a 1,000 songs or so (paraphrasing) to dig out a hit song.

So if my math is correct, they say they average one hit song out of every 1,000 songs they put into their catalog.