SEXYSynthStars: Synths, Samplers & Sequencers

In 2007 and 2008 I personally executed and financed the "LHS Acapella 2007" and "LHS Acapella 2008" recordings and CDs. Accordingly, I own the sound recordings. Of course, these are all cover songs so none of us owns the compositions. Anyone who performed in these will remember these recordings were done at my parents' house, using the living room as a "live room" and my bedroom as the "control room." It was a ton of work but I liked doing it.

 

In 2009 and later years I was paid by Lexington High School for my recording services to publish those years' CDs. I do not own those sound recordings, the school does.

 

Each group having >10 performers each means there's many people who performed on these sound recordings. At the time there was no discussion whatsoever of royalties, ownership, etc because at the time we weren't releasing this music commercially for sale on the market (it was impractical because we'd have to get permission from the composition owners to begin with).

 

I have been releasing my own music (artist name: Dave Daves) on the streaming platforms via DistroKid, one of the most popular digital distribution services. I pay $30/year to do this, but I've not done any promotion on my music whatsoever so it should come as no surprise that the earnings the last two years were below the $7.00 threshold required for them to cut a check. For an additional $12 per track DistroKid allows you to legally publish cover songs because they go and secure the permission of the composition owner and pay out composition royalties to them.

 

In an effort to start getting the music up on the streaming platforms I began with the 2007 CD and uploaded the 4 songs from ZEST, the group I was a part of. I also did one track from each of the other groups. Some of the tracks are already available on Apple Music & Spotify, others are still waiting clearance for the composition rights. Before uploading, I'm spending maybe a half hour on each track to do "mastering" as during high school I was not able to do this at a professional level nor did I have all the tools. Some substandard aspects of the recording process were the glass wall in the room where groups recorded, we didn't have an isolation booth for the beatboxers, budget microphones, mic preamps, etc - so don't expect miracles. It'll sound mostly the same, the goal being that these tracks won't be noticeably quieter (less loud) than other commercially published music.

 

At $12/track, I don't expect to recoup this small investment anytime soon through the paltry proceeds earned from streaming. Of course, until I've reimburse myself, those proceeds need to go to me (the composition royalties are directly sent to the composer). I suppose I'll continue to collect the money (not expecting music) once I'm reimbursed too - unless we all work out some kind of alternate agreement which I'm open to but doubt will happen because of the numerous performers involved, 5 groups involved, we did this 15+ years ago as high school students, etc).

 

So far as the 2009 & 2010 albums, my suggestion is that we establish some kind of a fund or scholarship - or perhaps the school, who owns these recordings, will have particular ideas. I will approach LHS and tell them that I'm publishing the recordings I own and that I'm willing to facilitate publishing theirs too so they can all be under the same Artist Name.

 

Another detail - do we include performers' names in the credits? For the ZEST songs I credited the soloist by name and the arranger by name. For the others I credited the soloist by name. Some folks may not want their names to appear in the credits, that's why I'm writing this 'open letter' so they can let me know. Perhaps some groups want to have more control about how their songs are published, all the details, I'm open to that too. There are opportunities to sell merch, those could lead to significant revenue...maybe.

 

Another way I could go about this, I suppose, would be through the current leadership for the groups (for groups which still exist). I will make an effort to get this letter to them because if they're still investing effort in this stuff, it may be more relevant to them.

 

Thanks!

David Seaward

davidmseaward@gmail.com