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The Status of "Featured Artist"


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Did you get any gear? Its all about the gear!

 

Actually, yes :0

 

Mike Rivers alerted me to Studio One (free). The folks at PreSonus (specifically, a guy I met in London) gave me an upgrade to Studio One Professional

 

So I suppose I'm being a tad ungenerous...

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Mike Rivers alerted me to Studio One (free). The folks at PreSonus (specifically, a guy I met in London) gave me an upgrade to Studio One Professional

 

And they never gave me anything but a boot off their forum in exchange for "artist development."

 

:sm-drool:

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I'm not really sure what these endorsments really do. I guess the trade is you get free stuff in return for the use of your name.

 

Most of the equations probably aren't that equal anyway... maybe a company wants to help a musician out who they like, and there's really not all that much in it for the company. Or alternatively, a company gets a big boost by saying so-and-so plays their instruments, which is more valuable than the instruments they actually send to that musician.

 

I'm not really sure what a company can really do for an artist tho.

 

we had one company approach my band with an interest in putting together a video with several of their artists playing together... kind of a cool idea, but never happened. :idk:

 

 

I'm sure craig would have more thoughts than any of us about this...

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I'm not really sure what these endorsments really do. I guess the trade is you get free stuff in return for the use of your name.

 

Most of the equations probably aren't that equal anyway... maybe a company wants to help a musician out who they like, and there's really not all that much in it for the company. Or alternatively, a company gets a big boost by saying so-and-so plays their instruments, which is more valuable than the instruments they actually send to that musician.

 

I'm not really sure what a company can really do for an artist tho.

 

we had one company approach my band with an interest in putting together a video with several of their artists playing together... kind of a cool idea, but never happened. :idk:

 

 

I'm sure craig would have more thoughts than any of us about this...

 

 

What happened in my case was this:

 

As you may know, I was invited by Craig to a Line 6 event in London in July 2013. So my good lady wife and I set off early and got there a little late (London traffic!)

 

Met Craig, and at one point me, my wife, Craig and a guy from PreSonus called Rodney were sitting at a table on the roof-terrace outside. It was a rare sunny day in England, you see ;)

 

Anyway, Craig was being very complimentary to me in front of Rodney, and I mentioned that I had the free version of PreSonus' Studio One DAW. Rodney then offered to email me a code which would give me an upgrade to Studio One Professional

 

Thinking about it now, I don't think I was offered Featured Artist status at the time. Rather, it was a few days later. I received a PDF contract, which I signed and emailed back to PreSonus

 

And that's kinda where I am now. I'm officially a PreSonus Featured Artist, but I don't feature on their list. But hey, I got a free top-of-the-line DAW so I can't really complain :)

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What happened in my case was this:

 

As you may know, I was invited by Craig to a Line 6 event in London in July 2013. So my good lady wife and I set off early and got there a little late (London traffic!)

 

Met Craig, and at one point me, my wife, Craig and a guy from PreSonus called Rodney were sitting at a table on the roof-terrace outside. It was a rare sunny day in England, you see ;)

 

Anyway, Craig was being very complimentary to me in front of Rodney, and I mentioned that I had the free version of PreSonus' Studio One DAW. Rodney then offered to email me a code which would give me an upgrade to Studio One Professional

 

Thinking about it now, I don't think I was offered Featured Artist status at the time. Rather, it was a few days later. I received a PDF contract, which I signed and emailed back to PreSonus

 

And that's kinda where I am now. I'm officially a PreSonus Featured Artist, but I don't feature on their list. But hey, I got a free top-of-the-line DAW so I can't really complain :)

 

 

sounds like they gave you a free software upgrade as a courtesy, and accounted for it under their Featured Artist program as an administrative thing. :idk:

 

 

That said, they should actually feature you because you're a great story -- delivery man by day, weekend warrior musician by... weekend. You use modest equipment and come up with great and great-sounding tunes.

 

 

 

 

 

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I'm not really sure what these endorsments really do. I guess the trade is you get free stuff in return for the use of your name.

 

Most of the equations probably aren't that equal anyway... maybe a company wants to help a musician out who they like, and there's really not all that much in it for the company. Or alternatively, a company gets a big boost by saying so-and-so plays their instruments, which is more valuable than the instruments they actually send to that musician.

 

I'm not really sure what a company can really do for an artist tho.

 

I would imagine the company makes out better long term than the artist in $$$. Look at Waves…. they pretty much have the monopoly on "featured artists". Seriously, how many engineers and producers do they have on their roster? At least 3 dozen at this point. I love Waves but its their plug ins have gotten a wee bit silly recently with the De-Breath…. really?

 

So, if you`re Waves and you create a plug in package for Chris Lord-Alge, I would imagine thats good publicity for CLA, he probably gets a % of sales off his collection and Waves probably sells that package like hot cakes because if you own the CLA collection, you`ll mix like CLA! Isn`t that the subliminal message behind all gear ads?

 

In my case, I just want to be clear, I would be very interested in being an SSL featured artist because I like the gear. They wouldn`t sell 1 extra piece because of me! :p

 

 

 

 

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I would imagine the company makes out better long term than the artist in $$$. Look at Waves…. they pretty much have the monopoly on "featured artists". Seriously, how many engineers and producers do they have on their roster? At least 3 dozen at this point. I love Waves but its their plug ins have gotten a wee bit silly recently with the De-Breath…. really?

 

So, if you`re Waves and you create a plug in package for Chris Lord-Alge, I would imagine thats good publicity for CLA, he probably gets a % of sales off his collection and Waves probably sells that package like hot cakes because if you own the CLA collection, you`ll mix like CLA! Isn`t that the subliminal message behind all gear ads?

 

In my case, I just want to be clear, I would be very interested in being an SSL featured artist because I like the gear. They wouldn`t sell 1 extra piece because of me! :p

 

 

 

 

that's not a typical deal tho. in the waves case the plugin includes settings from the producer, who is probably getting a %. it's more of a business deal.

 

 

a traditional featured artist is just some musician who uses the company's gear. the company sends a freebie to the musician, and puts a pic of the musician on its website.

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I have a couple of friends who are Martin featured artists. They got that way by asking Martin to customize a guitar to their specs, and paid for it, without knowing for sure what it would turn out like. They were happy with their guitars, but this is someone who, 35 years ago, spent several hours in a music store playing every D-28 that they had, chose one, and I think she still has it.

 

They do get a good deal on Martin strings, but they prefer a different brand (which, I believe also gives them a discount in exchange for using their names).

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sounds like they gave you a free software upgrade as a courtesy, and accounted for it under their Featured Artist program as an administrative thing. :idk:

 

 

That said, they should actually feature you because you're a great story -- delivery man by day, weekend warrior musician by... weekend. You use modest equipment and come up with great and great-sounding tunes.

 

 

 

 

 

That's very kind of you. Thanks :)

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I'm sure craig would have more thoughts than any of us about this...

 

Well I certainly know how Gibson works with artists, but I think it's the exception rather than the norm. Gibson has a huge artists relations department, with offices and showrooms all over the world. In addition to a variety of other functions, these are "pit stops" for artists who are touring or doing appearance. For example they might not want to take their prized vintage Les Paul from England for an appearance on Letterman or whatever, so the entertainment relations (ER) office makes sure they have something identical or at least close to what they play, set up and strung the way they like. They'll also do repairs and such. For example it's a big deal having guitars go from, say, the South to Las Vegas due to the change of humidity. The Vegas showroom has a guitar tech who does the necessary setup changes to compensate.

 

ERs also work with artists on signature guitars, e.g., the Jason Hook or Lzzy Hale guitar. The artist gets a royalty and there are usually some mild strings attached like mentioning it in interviews, which they'd do anyway. I approved a guitar to be given to a loyal Gibson artist so he'd have a "touring" guitar in addition to the one he kept at home, and in return he agreed to do a couple instructional videos describing his techniques. These artists tend to be decent people and they don't expect something for nothing.

 

I don't want to sound like a hypemeister here, but often with Gibson the reality ends up sounding that way...Gibson artists tend to be very loyal to their guitars, and Gibson (well, Henry actually :)) pretty much leaves them alone because they're enthusiastic on their own without any prompting. For example, the guitarist in the Script is a huge fan of the G Force automatic tuning. He was talking about it with ER and it came down to "Can we do a video?" and the guy was like, sure, no problem. So ER did a video with him about why he likes it, which Gibson was able to use.

 

Some companies are "name collectors" and they pay for that in one way or another. It's a little different with Gibson because many artists already play Gibson guitars, so Gibson is more into rewarding them for playing Gibson and increasing their visibility because they don't need to be convinced to play Gibson.

 

 

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To which I would add...I've lent my name to endorsements for various products over the years. In every case, I was already using the product so I didn't have a problem with letting the company mention my involvement. What I got in return was either continuing updates in the case of software, or with hardware, the option to buy things at dealer cost, or in some cases, get cosmetic rejects or B stock for free.

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