MISTAKES THAT CAN KILL YOUR SONG DEMO

So, you’ve written a great song and you want to record an amazing demo to present it to the world. But there are certain things you need to know and follow before, during and after writing your demos. Believe it or not, the presentation of the demo sometimes can be even more important the content of the demo itself!! You can have a great demo and a bad presentation can make music supervisors and producers to don’t take it seriously, or opposite, you can have an “okay” demo but a good presentation and attract the attentions towards what you had done. Here are things I have learned in a 15-year career and more than 3,000 demos.

Telling the band what to play. Let the band and the engineer to be creative. A HUGE mistake I see people making in the studio is coming in and telling each player what to play. They tell the drummer how and when to play. They make weird noises that is supposed to be the bass line and the bassist is supposed to play and they sing the lick they want the guitar player to play, and so it goes. My thought is this: If you know what everyone should play, just make the demo yourself. You don’t need a band. I can’t count the number of times that I have had amazing things happen in the studio because I let the band to experiment and have fun. The more fun they are having, the better my demo will be in most cases. Creative people like to get the chance to be creative. Let them do their job. They are instrumentalist not machines. They may come up with something much better than what you had in your head.
 
Telling the singer what to sing. Let the singer try different things. Countless times, I have seen writers forcing the singer to sing their melody note for note. Sometimes it’s good not to stick to the exact melody and let the singer to put their own ideas in your demo. Pushing the singer wears them out. It takes away any creativity they might bring to your song. And, ultimately, it will cause them to just give you a so-so performance. If there is a melody spot that makes a HUGE difference to you, then fight for it. Otherwise, acknowledge that this person is singing your demo because they are a better singer than you are, and they might be on to something when they try different things. They might make your melody even better and more attractive to other singers – like the artists you will be pitching them to.

Playing producer. Don’t play producer if you are not one. The fact is that most writers that don’t have a cut don’t need to be producing their own demos. Studio bands have played on tens of thousands of demos. They know more about how a song should sound than you do in most instances. So, don’t feel the need to “direct the show” any more than you have to.
 
Failing to learn the language. Learn to communicate your vision for your songs. When I start each demo, I say something like “I want this to have a similar vibe to Kenny Chesney’s “Anything But Mine”‘ The band instantly knows what I’m talking about and they start off very much in the ballpark where I want to be. The better you can communicate what you want, the better and cheaper your demos will be.
 
Coming in unprepared. Know what you want when you go into the studio. The studio is not the place to re-write, figure out production, change things around, etc. You are paying a lot of money to have people sit around and watch you do your job if you do those things in the studio. Go in knowing the key, the arrangement, the tempo, etc. That helps things go smoothly and saves you money. Plus, it makes the band and the engineer like you WAY more.

Asking for too many changes to a demo. A demo doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it won’t be perfect. There’s just not time to get everything perfect in the demo studio. The cost of perfection is high. And, at the end of the day, the demo is just to give people an IDEA of what your song could become if produced professionally. In the pro world, our rule is this – If you don’t show up for the demo, you are giving your co-writer who is there your blessing to create the demo. You give up the right to complain or ask for it to be different. We operate on a show-up or shut up basis. If you are just DYING to hear the demo go down and you can’t be there, you may ask to be Skyped in, but tread lightly here. Pros don’t do that – so it’s best to just watch and not interject if you are allowed that courtesy. Learning to behave as pro songwriters behave in the studio will save you lots of money, produce better demos and it will make you a customer that people like to work with.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 14 years of experience in music production, mix and mastering, recording engineering, live sound designing/engineering, lyrics writing and music arrangement. He has produced more than 1000 and written more than 3000 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.