EHM The Blue Line

Time for us at Never Dies to sign a contract... I ripped out the one we had, as it was with a company that hadn't have any record studio in NY.

I asked all the punk rock recording studios in NY which contract they should offer us, and paid attention to the quality of the studio, and their level in terms of punk rock. I asked them what they should offer us in terms of profit% (how much we earn on the sales), discount% (when we record at this studio), length of the contract (expressed in real life years; 1 year RL = 6.5 popo years), promotion, possibility of live records, possibility to make videos, and if they have a 5* guy in recording to record our tracks. "?" are displayed when the question hasn't been answered.

In the following list, studios are sorted by quality, and then by punk rock (PKRK) level. Here are the answers:

Legion Records
quality: perfect
PKRK: good
special: this studio is only for the famous band Lego Legion, so they won't offer us a contract. I told them their studio is the one that interested us the most, so maybe they'll change their mind about offering us a contract, but i truly doubt of it

Unicrest
quality: perfect
PKRK: abysmal
profit%: 62%
discount%: 100%
length: 1 year
promo: ?
live: ?
video: No. Too expansive
recorder: yes
special: the recorder is only for "important songs"... I don't know what they exactly mean by this, but i don't think they will consider our songs as important...

Wanha Punk Records
quality: perfect
PKRK: truly abysmal
profit%: 68%
discount%: 100%
length: ?
promo: ?
live: ?
videos: ?
recorder: ?
special: Their answer was just a formal "68%/100%". Nothing more. So they don't seem to be really involved in...

Gunsmoke!
quality: nice
PKRK: horrendous
profit%: 65%
discount%: 100%
length: 1 year
promo: yes
live: yes
videos: yes
recorder: no
special: when i told them that we need some reflection time to decide which offer should be the best for us, they send me a contract... Pretty curious indeed... And they agree to make videos while it's hardly expansive...

Adeline Records
quality: dreadful
PKRK: truly abysmal
profit%: 55%
discount%: 100%
length: 1-2 years
promo: ?
videos: No. Too expansive
recorder: ?
special: Adeline's CEO is the only one who told me that he had a look at our band... So even if they are not a top quality studio, at least they seem to pay some attention to who they sign...

Costprice Stuff
quality: truly abysmal
PKRK: abysmal
special: only studio who didn't answer yet... Messages were sent 3 days ago, so their lack of reactivity should be annoying...

Bruinsma Records
quality: truly abysmal
PKRK: truly abysmal
profit%: 55%
discount%: 100%
length: ?
promo: ?
live: ?
videos: ?
recorder: ?
special: basic offer for a new band, with not a lot of details. Bad studio quality and bad punk rock quality.

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All in all, i see only two interesting offers: Unicrest, even if their PKRK level is only abysmal, and Adeline Records, who shows some interest. Gunsmoke! should be along with them, but the fact that they faslty send us a contract is a bit suspect to me, even if their answer was really detailed and sounds interesting at first sight...

What do you guys think of this? Both Never Dies members and non-member All advices are good

Adelina seems more sympathetic

Not a lot of answers guys... If you don't care or just trust in me to make the right choice, let me know

I've looked at other informations for each studio.

This time i focused on the companies that own the studios: how many locals they have, what is their cash amount, what is the cash amount of the studio (to see how well the company/studio is managed), how many bands are signed, and what percentage of them are punk rock bands (to see if they are really implicated in punk rock).

As Costprice still hasn't answer my request, and as Legion Records is only for Lego Legion, we know have just 5 possibilities.

Instead of giving you all the numbers, i'll give you my point of view on each of them:

Wanha: high studio quality; high profit%; lot of cash; 95% of PKRK bands signed -> sounds serious and solid ; top option

Unicrest: high studio quality; high profit%; (too?) huge company; lot of cash; too many bands signed? (over 200); 95% of PKRK bands signed -> serious and solid, but maybe too big to be able to pay attention to each of their bands signed ; good option

Gunsmoke!: high profit%; no cash, while it's an old company -> beware of bankrupt!; very few bands signed (only 9); not a lot of PKRK bands signed (5 out of 9) -> they need money, maybe the reason why they sent a contract even if i didn't ask them to do so ; not a good choice

Adeline: not a good studio quality; basic contract offer; not a lot of cash, but 1 year old company; sign a minority of PKRK bands (only 40%) -> not on a way to be perfect, even if they seem sympathic

Bruinsma: bad studio; basic contract offer ; old company, but not that much cash; NO bands signed... => sounds to be an inactive studio!

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Only two studios remain interesting, according to me: Wanha and Unicrest.

Wanha is more solid in cash and belongs to a smaller company. They also have less band signed (over 50, 2nd in NYC punk rock studios, against over 200 for Unicrest), so they may give a higher support to the bands they sign.

For those reasons, they are my top choice. Furthermore, they offer a higher profit % (68% vs 62% for Unicrest)

I would go for Wanha. And you guys?

well, you're the boss, follow your heart

Yeah, i'm "the boss" But it's a contract for the whole band, not just for me That's why i give you infos and ask you what you think of it.

You're all allowed to disagree with me! This band is not a "dictatorshit"

Good to see Never Dies is getting it together.

Obviously I'm not in your band, Shadd, but just for some input - I'd go with "Wanha." Based on what you said, they look good while not being to overwhelmingly big like Unicrest seems to be. With Wanha, it'll probably be a little more intimate... and at Unicrest you guys will probably just be another brick in their giant wall.

B. Stinson: yeah, that's also my feelings about it... Thanks for giving your advice

I hope i'll have more feedback from the band, as they are the first concerned

Currently there is no difference between recording in a "punk" studio or a "reggae" studio locale, so if a label has any kind of studio in NYC you can record there. We're going to be recording in Prophecy's Electronica Studio because that's the one they have in NYC for example.

So that's what I meant by looking at just studio locales being confusing, big labels have a lot of studios just to organize their band types but anyone on the label can record at any location no matter the designation.

Many labels have their own forum, and you can learn a lot from those and how active they are about what kind of service you'd get from them. But I'd say how they respond to you is the most important thing really.

Shadd666 wrote:You're all allowed to disagree with me! This band is not a "dictatorshit"

sometime dictatorshit is better than democrazy

but it's another story...

Minstrel: thanks for the infos well... it's a lot more work to do now by the way, Adeline Records is now top of the list, as they were by far the coolest answer. I'm gonna have a closer eye on it in the next few days.

By the way, what's the use of indicating a specific genre for a studio if it doesn't influence the quality in any way? In real life, studios are specialized in some genres too, but don't ask a r'n'b studio to record properly a death-metal band! They'll never be able to do so. This aspect of the game is so far from reality that i'm absolutely lost


holydogg: sometimes, yes, i agree but as you said, it's an other story

Shadd666 wrote:Minstrel: thanks for the infos well... it's a lot more work to do now by the way, Adeline Records is now top of the list, as they were by far the coolest answer.

I know I was right


Let just says its the canadian flegm

Shadd; genre-specific studios just aren't implemented yet. And the easiest way to give yourself a is to try and equate how things work in real life and how things work in Popo. Learn how things actually work not how they should work or how you'd like them to work and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

Sorry about slow responce.

The one that I would of chosen would be Adeline. As I think things will probably run alot more smoothly if we have somone who responds and looks at the bands aswell. So my vote goes to Adeline.

Minty: yeah, real world and popo world are totally different on that subject But as i'm used to think of it with my real-life knowledge, it's sometimes hard to figure out how it goes in popoworld. But i'm slowly learning how it runs in popo

By the way, you said that genre-specific studios aren't implemented yet... But as there's a "genre" line for each studio, i guess it will be implemented sooner or later... Do you (or someone else) heard anything about that?

As they say, it's one of those things that's "In the pipeline" which means it will get done eventually but they don't know when.

So as it's used to say: wait and see!

By the way, we don't need a contract at once, as we won't record anything before the tour.

But i'm a bit surprised that so few Never Dies members gave their opinion about that...

Shadd666 wrote:But i'm a bit surprised that so few Never Dies members gave their opinion about that...

Sack everybody and start a trash-polka-garage band



ps: the emos never sleeps... they waits

I think we should take Wanha or Adeline. Wanha is the top option though.

holydogg wrote:Sack everybody and start a trash-polka-garage band

I love the idea of the trash-polka-garage band!

But i won't sack anyone At least, not yet...

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About the recording contract, well... it's not our main preoccupation actually... We'll take a closer eye on it after the tour

It's not always easy to have a 5* producer, so i'm gonna start to learn the recording skill when possible. There's nothing better than the "do it yourself"!