Ronan Murphy

More than 90% of TAXI's listings are for placements in film and TV. When TAXI first started, there were many listings for artists looking for new songs. A piano/vocal or guitar/vocal was acceptable for submitting back then. Radio-ready/ broadcast quality is now a necessity to get forwarded by TAXI. Just the nature of the Beast, regardless if you go through TAXI or anyone in the Industry. Yeah, that has happened industry wide and I think its a bummer. Even labels seem to want finished masters as demo tapes.

Yeah. You sound like you work for Taxi. And if you don't you should. Nice sell!! No. I do not work for Taxi. I do not think i would even want to, but just by virtue of living in LA and being pretty entrenched in the music business, I know a lot of people that work there quite well (and I casually know the guy that runs it). Its not for everyone. I probably tell as many people that Taxi is probably not for them, as I recommend it. I just chime in on threads like this because I know enough people in the organization to know that they are not running it like a scam. They are legitimately trying to do right by their clients (the clients by the way are the members, Taxi does not take any money from the label, publishers, etc looking for the music or talent).

My opinion - If Taxi doesn't have any need for 40 YO Blues songwriters that can't tour, they should post that on their website. They should have their requirements disclosed BEFORE you sign up and before you send them your money. As others have said, you completely misunderstood my post. If a music supervisor was looking for some bar-band style blues tracks for a biker bar scene in a movie, and some one sent a Justin Timberlake style track in, it would be the exact same problem. Completely inappropriate. I do not speak on Taxis behalf by any means, but I feel pretty confident that if some one called or wrote Taxi and said, "I have a progressive metal / polka band made up of 50 year olds, will Taxi have a lot of opportunities for me?" I have a feeling you would get an pretty honest answer.

Taxi may be a lot of things, but a scam is not one of them. They are a company that does exactly what they say they are going to do, at exactly the price they say they are going to do it for. There is no upsell, and they take no vested interest in the success of their members. If you land a deal that makes you $50,000, Taxi's cut of that is $0.00 Also they host the Taxi Road Rally every year which is a really cool conference. It is free for members plus a guest. Basically $150/person for one of the better music conferences I have been to. Even if you never do anything with Taxi but the conference its still a good deal. In full disclosure, I do not work for Taxi (never have), but I have spoken at the conference a few times and know people that work there as screeners (the people that listen to and evaluate the music). One of the biggest problems with a lot of member that have no success seems to be people that do not pay attention to what the record company. publisher, music supervisor, etc is actually looking for. A label could post that they are looking for a young artist in the style of Justin Timberlake, and all these blues bands with guys in their 40-50s send in their music for the listing, then bitch to people that Taxi sucks because nothing ever happens with their music...

Originally posted by genesis3 ....I know the devil is in the details, The devil is not in the details. Its quite blunt. you need a real amp. Good amp, decent mic and pre. That's pretty much it.

Originally posted by Fletcher@mercenary.com The POD crap is fine for quick writing demos but No its not!!! You and I both know that many times demo tracks end up on the album, and now you are stuck with that F'ing awful guitar sound. Amp emulation is the single worst thing to happen to recorded music in my lifetime!!!!

Play into a good tube amp. Put a SM57 an inch away from the grill and move around to taste. If you have a little extra money get a nice mic pre and AD converter. This is exactly how tons of big budget records are made every day.

The Pod will do great for you if you want to have several different sounds that do not sound good. Really the Pod is awful, even the Vox Tone lab has made great improvements so its not awful, its just not any good. saying the Pod can emulate a real amp is like saying you have been to Italy because you went to the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. They sound nothing like the amps they claim to emulate and they sound just plain bad regardless. The biggest problem with all the amp emulators though is that they will make everything thing else on the records sound worse. Your drums, vocals, keys, acoustics etc will all sound worse because you used the Pod for guitars.

I hate doing business by the hour so I never do it, but I usually try and take one or two days off a month.

Originally posted by Coaster listen to EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH. the last disc has some severe edits on it that click and pop. a big dissapointment. The original 1970s recording is the most perfect record ever recorded. Curse you for dissing it!! The thing about production is that there is no such thing as over produced. Only good and bad production. I love the raw loose feel of old Neil Young records because it suits the music perfectly, and I also love the totally smooth and detailed productions of Seal's first couple records because they suit that music so well. All that said, I think modern rock records are usually pretty boring. Everything autotuned, drums lined up to a grid and guitar parts all flown around. You don't hear bands anymore, you hear studio product, and not very interesting ones at that.