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Staff here at Songbridge have been asked this question a great deal lately so
we thought it warrants some space on the site.
Most
successful writers would agree a good song is a good song, no matter how it is
presented. The fact is though, it's usually not a songwriter you are sending your
material to - it's a manager, a label or publisher, whose job is to find that
"gem". All they want to find are songs for their artists, songs that they can
"hear" on radio, and a great demo helps present that. Better production values
add more credibility to your songs. Having said that, it is their job to find
good songs, and better production will not make a bad song better. (Okay, some
would argue that point, as there are a lot of songs on radio that, stripped of
their production, would appear to have been written by a monkey) | | You
have to weigh all the odds, if the artist you are submitting to does not write,
then chances are he/she might not be able to hear the possibilities of a song
beyond a basic kitchen tape. Sometimes you have to spell it out for them, with
all the bells and whistles and harmonies and guitar riffs. Artists that do write
or play an instrument, tend to hear more 'colours" in the song and can hear past
a basic guitar vocal demo and imagine that great bass riff and drum pattern you
can only imply with a guitar. | 
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It's been my experience, having heard the publishing demos and heard the final
cuts, that more often than not, the final cut included all the same musical complements
as in the demo i.e. harmonies, guitar riffs, bass and drum patterns, which leads
me to believe a fully produced demo works!
We talked to both Cyril Rawson
and Dean McTaggart, who have successfully placed an enviable number of tunes and
they shared their thoughts on demo production. (See our archives
for impressive bio info on these two!)
"My take on it is, a good demo (and
I stress good demo) is only going to make a good song sound better" states
Dean. " I think you have to keep in mind if you are pitching songs, you are competing
with a lot of writers and I would guess that at least 90% of the pro writers have
GREAT demos" he continues. Cyril adds "A good friend of mine was head of A&R at
BNA Records, a division of RCA Nashville at the time. He showed me the barrels
of tapes he had to screen for any given project. What you are up against is someone
maybe only getting 20 seconds in to a song before ejecting it or giving it a chance.
In these cases it is the shear number of pitches made, and from that stand point,
if you don't have a special "in" through the artist, manager, bus driver or something
like that, then you are up against a whole lot of other demos that are full blown
(production)" he states.
Dean continues "I have had songs cut on piano
demos but for the most part the songs of mine that get cut have great demos and
in some cases were existing records". One final point Dean made and I whole heartedly
agree:
"If nothing else spend the money on a real good singer....that is the
last place you want to cheap out".
Cyril's comments bring up a point regarding
an unrealistic expectation that your whole song will be listened to. I know all
you pro writers out there know this, but for those who don't, I have to tell you
most producers, A&R departments, Managers or Artists who screen your songs, will
play your song until the first chorus. That's all the time you have to grab them.
Some tunes get ejected after the first line of the vocal because of poor recording
quality or even worse - vocal performance. "It doesn't take much to figure out
who gets listened to" continues Cyril. "It's not right and a lot of great songs
get "passed on" every day and the people who screen know that, but again, without
that special "in", they have so much to go through that a weak demo, or guitar
vocal demo may not get it done".
So how well produced should a song demo
be? Very well produced. You can only increase your chances of getting a cut, but
cutting great demos.
~Jana | | |
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