BUSINESS END

Business End enables you to have your demo reviewed by a panel of producers, songwriters, musicians and managers. If you want your demo to be heard by them then please mark it 'Business End' and write on the outside of the package the style of music that best describes your work. This month's industry panel is drawn from the MPG (Music Producer's Guild).

	'Track 1' (1.43Mb)		MP3
	'Track 2' (1.43Mb)		MP3
	'Track 3' (1.43Mb)		MP3

Matt Ward (MW): "It was a non-cohesive demo only held together by the rapping. It's very early '90s sounding and not very good at that. The attempt at garage was okay but it was garage by numbers, so they probably need to be more incisive instead of just copying a musical style.

Ian Caple (IC): "I thought the third track was pretty good because it sounded a bit more original, and it didn't have the regulation drum beats. The rest of it I'd heard before. It was trying to be hard and tough, but the bass end didn't really work hard enough on the first two tracks. On the third track it sounded like they'd relaxed a bit, and it seemed to work better. They'd also put a bit of guitar on there which was probably the key.

"I quite like the girl's voice but when you get that mixture of rapper and girl singer the lyrics need to be well sorted out otherwise you end up singing clichés."

Haydn Bendall (HB): "I think the production was poor but tracks one and three were good for their rhythmical, melodic and harmonic ideas. The second song was a bit dull. I find it slightly weird that they have done a lot of work on a demo and then sent in vocals that they've only spent half a day on — and you can tell. The notes say they rushed it before the singer went abroad, but why didn't they wait until she was back?

"As a producer, if somebody had played me the first and third track and asked if I'd like to go into the studio with this bunch I would say yes because I thought there was a freshness about it and I particularly like the fact that the first track had a definable structure."

Tony Platt (TP): "I liked the third track too, and I thought her voice was very good. There were some good musical ideas but I would agree that the production was very incoherent, and was like a bag of bits that hadn't been properly put together. But I like to pose the question, haven't we had enough rapping for now? It is so utterly passe. On the last track he wasn't really rapping — he was almost toasting — and that had the makings of an idea. But he hasn't structured the rapping with her voice.

"There are lots of apologies in his letter, but the point gets made time and time again that you can't pass things on to people for judgement if you are not 100 percent satisfied. Make sure it is right and don't make apologies because there is not room for them with a table full of demos."

IC: "Even just being naively over confident works because if an artist is almost bordering on arrogance you can't ignore that conviction."

	'Track 1' (1.43Mb)		MP3
	'Track 2' (1.43Mb)		MP3
	'Track 3' (1.43Mb)		MP3

HB: "I thought the first track was really good apart from the horrible sampled vocals. I thought you could really do something lovely with the tune, and it was quite hypnotic. But you do have to question her taste for using that sample vocal."

TP: "I couldn't work out if it was determinably lo-fi or whether it was badly done — it's a fine line. I agree with Ian that it was non committal. If she had stripped it down even more and made it more stark and minimal then at least you would have felt it was intentionally lo-fi"

Andy East (AE): " It's a case where she needs collaboration. She's got ideas but I think she'd really benefit from working with somebody else to develop those ideas."

	'Track 1' (1.43Mb)		MP3
	'Track 2' (1.43Mb)		MP3
	'Track 3' (1.43Mb)		MP3

HB: "All three of these tracks sounded like unfinished backing tracks that were still waiting for the main bit to go on. I did think the recording was quite clean and there was a restrained use of compression, which was refreshing. The music that was there was quite nice but it sounds like the ideas you'd send off to a friend who is good at constructing tunes. So it could be made interesting."

IC: "It sounded like a guy who was programming something rather than writing. It's good programming but nobody buys programming."

MW: "I thought there were some nice rhythmical ideas there but it suffered awfully from a lack of arrangement. I think it is good when people do try to make changes in the standard rhythm although doing that did make this demo incredibly jarry. I thought that it didn't build up very well — it just went from one thing into another. It needs a better arrangement so each beat gives the expectation of the next beat, to allow it to build up. The sounds they'd chosen made it incredibly dated so they also need some better sounds."

TP: "Matt has made the comment that the sounds are incredibly dated and that is something I felt about several things we've heard today. They are all using bog-standard patches that everybody knows, and it has always been a bug-bear of mine that even though you have synthesizers with pretty much infinite possibilities, few people spend enough time programming."

This Month's MPG Panel     After working as a piano tuner for Steinway & Sons, Haydn Bendall was employed at Abbey Road Studios for over 17 years, including ten as senior engineer. Apart from working with names like Fleetwood Mac, George Martin, Elton John, Damon Albarn and Hans Zimmer, Haydn has collaborated on several musicals with Eric Woolfson and has made extensive recordings with all the major London orchestras. Today, Haydn is a partner of the UK production company DAT Productions. Ian Caple started his career as an engineer at EMI's KPM Studios where he recorded demos for Kate Bush and Adam Ant's Kings Of The Wild Frontier album. He has since worked as a freelance engineer/producer with acts including Shriekback, Julian Cope, Ian Broudie, Echo & The Bunnymen, Tricky, Bernard Butler, Gravediggaz, dEUS, Stevie Wonder, Sugarcubes, Manson and Jah Wobble. Ian has also recorded and mixed all seven Tindersticks albums to date. Matt Ward worked for the MCPS as a music licensing consultant for several years before moving to Kickin Music in London, where he heads their publishing arm, Haripa Music Publishing. Kickin/Haripa's catalogue and writers include Chiller Twist, Kings of Tomorrow, Deep Dish, Decoder, Blaze, Future Disciple, Lemon D, Carl Faure and the Early Dance Masters. Over the last 30 years, Tony Platt has engineered and produced albums by some of the biggest names in music, from rock to reggae. Tony cut his teeth engineering Bob Marley and The Wailers' Catch A Fire and Burnin' albums, before going on to engineer for Robert John 'Mutt' Lange on AC/DC's 16-million-selling album Back In Black. Tony is now involved with a multimedia company, DAT Productions, alongside his work as a producer and engineer. Additional comment from MPG Chairman Andy East. Many thanks to Phoenix Sound Studios who hosted the session. The MPG's web site is at www.mpg.org.uk

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