Something about Drum and Bass that confuses me..

Matt_47

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Oct 21, 2008
I've been into DnB for about a year now, and there's something which has been bugging me for ages..

I often hear people say theres not much money in DnB. Loads of times I've heard tracks being played out and in mixes, but they don't get released until much later on when they've got old (The lifetime of DnB tunes seems pretty short these days). E.g. Subfocus - Follow the Light, first time I heard this was back in April on the Nightlife 4 CD, and I heard on the Radio 1 DnB show that it'd be released in december! Surely the demand (and so the income that ram/sub will get) for the 12" will be much less than if they released it much earlier?

Anyone wanna shed some light on this? (or slate me if I've missed something :P)
 
probably so that the producer and anyone lucky enough to get a copy/dub has time to rinse it.

the tune probably has to go through a load of final production, then there is artwork to be done, probably a load of legal crap to go through, i.e. getting the artist/label to agree on who gets how much etc.

but 8 months is a loooong time. I don't think its limited to dnb, i know its the same with hardcore/freeform as well (a mate of mine, a happy hardcore DJ (booo!) is forever moaning about this).
 
People don't get into making & playing D&B for money. Labels aren't set up purely in the intrest of making profits.
All these guys that run labels, and DJ up and down the country do it because they have a passion for the music. Yeah labels need to make money to run, but im sure it's not at the front of their minds when deciding when/if to release a tune.

Take Artisan VIP.

This would have sold in bucket loads 6 months ago, but it's not getting a release, because lomax & scheme decided to keep it as a VIP.

Im sure they didn't make that decision to avoid lining their pockets.
 
People don't get into making & playing D&B for money. Labels aren't set up purely in the intrest of making profits.
All these guys that run labels, and DJ up and down the country do it because they have a passion for the music. Yeah labels need to make money to run, but im sure it's not at the front of their minds when deciding when/if to release a tune.

Take Artisan VIP.

This would have sold in bucket loads 6 months ago, but it's not getting a release, because lomax & scheme decided to keep it as a VIP.

Im sure they didn't make that decision to avoid lining their pockets.

http://dnbforum.com/showthread.php?p=361589#post361589

Tell me how it all works, it sounds pretty interesting :D
 
It's also a numbers game... DnB is an underground music with a limited appeal...

A huge huge DnB 12" might sell say around 7k copies... If it's £5 a copy, how mauch do you thing the producer sees of that? After agency, label, distribution, manufacture, design, unions, marketing etc - You're lucky if you're getting 10-20% left for the producer. So how much does the producer make off a big tune? A few thousand pounds...

So to even make a half way decent living wage you'd need to be releasing A huge huge tune every couple of months... Not many producers could do that, and even less could sustain it, which is why they all do a lot of DJ'ing which is far more lucrative...

There is no money in DnB, but like was said before, nobody does it for the money, it's just for the love, the rush and the good times...
 
surely a huge tune sells much more than 7000 copies. most of the big tunes are distributed in so many places that I'm sure more than 7k get sold. I don't know, just guessing...
 
It would be interesting to see some figures of say last years top 50 drum & bass vinyl sales, and what they were.

How many copies of 'More than alot' do you think will be pressed/sold?
 
mr. happy sold 7.5k when it came out last year and hype was pleased with that. sayin it was a good seller etc...

doubt most other releases get anywhere near that...
 
yeah I heard Hype talkin about how Hazard big tunes like busted, mr happy etc all sold just over 7k copies and that's a real good result for Playaz...

So that's what, just over 35k in total from these sales - after all the thing I mentioned above are deducted (distribution, publishing, manufacturing, design, retailers, unions, marketing, advertising, label etc) what do you think Mr Hazard takes home to feed the kids with?
 
yeah I heard Hype talkin about how Hazard big tunes like busted, mr happy etc all sold just over 7k copies and that's a real good result for Playaz...

So that's what, just over 35k in total from these sales - after all the thing I mentioned above are deducted (distribution, publishing, manufacturing, design, retailers, unions, marketing, advertising, label etc) what do you think Mr Hazard takes home to feed the kids with?

The thought that Hazard might actually have kids scares me. He's a 4ft gnome!
 
Is he?

He looks quite tall in the photos...

Who is taller, him, Nicky Blackmarket or Hype?
 
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