Page 17 - Zone Magazine Issue 008

How do you see music production changing in the future, in regards to formats and distribution? Of course in the last two decades we seen a shift from vinyl to CD to digital?
Lee: Technology has a big say in what we do and it’s progressing at such a high rate. We have already seen an influx and demand for streaming portals where people can just listen to tracks rather than pay for a download. This I feel isn’t very productive for dance singles but maybe more album based releases.
I feel we will start to see better or alternative formats to MP3 that will include video based files that combine video with your downloaded track.
We will have to consider more in terms of options for mobile devices and convenience for people to access what we do. Everyone one has some kind of mobile portal device glued to his or her hands, heads or pocket so we need look at how to target that.
Brent: We definitely need to find ways in to the mobile world that makes Pro-B-Tech visible at all times.
Stems files have started to become more popular for dance releases but its still very optional more than a definitive format.
Distribution wont change so much unless the outlet where is going changes i.e. we saw the format change from vinyl to digital, it started because CD decks appeared on the market.
You have had some excellent releases featuring Hernan Cattaneo, Dave Seaman, King Unique, and of course Blue Amazon. But something tells me the bar is always raised with
you guys so what can we expect in 2016?
Brent: Very much so there have been some major artists that have really helped us get noticed and been very privileged to work with, many whom I have followed and looked up to for all the years involved in dance music. That said as I mentioned there are amazing producers out there that people don’t know so at this stage we very much want to nurture and assist new artists and be a part of their journey.
We do have forthcoming remixes from "Quivver", "Ian Dillon" who is raising his own bar by the minute, "Sebastian Markiewicz" is working with us, we have a new "Showcase" album which we believe is stronger than our ADE album. We are planning our own mix compilation album series and " Sam Mollison " album is very much in the picture too. You will also start see some stronger Techky projects on the label.
Lee: I agree that we have to be fair to the artists that are not as familiar to most. We are not just about names and some of these artists are equally as good. We have also recently signed “Jan Myer” who’s producing some quality techno, lots of high quality work from immerging artists such as Nila, Feed On Digital, In Progress, GabiM, Kiz Pattison, DaGeneral & Moggi, Craig Brogan, Zak Gee, Mark Youssef, John Joseph & Javier Benitez, Bowwyer Hawks, ilias koutromanos , Red Tree, Hernan Serrao and the list goes on.
All of these artist are increasing getting better and better and pushing themselves for more. We will always push for stronger releases and that even includes myself if I'm remixing or
recording something for the label I also have to keep improving.
How do manage your full workflow, from signing to artist management, promotion and distribution. What are the biggest challenges?
Lee: Its totally a combined effort of delegation between us, I’m quite involved in the initial stages of signing artists and looking at projects and ideas.
We receive a large amount of demos though our demo e-mail account every week. This doesn’t mean that I will solely pick things to go on the label or source everything but do spend a bit of time checking potentials for consideration and I’ll often have the initial chats with the artists about their expectations. Once we have decided on something Brent takes over with a list of procedures if you like until we are ready to schedule the release or arrange a remix of the release.
We spent a lot of time throughout last year documenting and getting a system in place to make the signing and contracting easier for both the artist and label.
If we are arranging remixes for a release we be initially sourcing and arranging a suitable remix artist (in consultation with the artist) including fees and remix contract.
Once we get closer to a scheduled release date there’s a whole process of getting the artist tracks mastered, compiling press releases for the intended project,
" I agree that we have to be fair to the artists that are not as familiar to most. We are not just about names and some of these artists are equally as good. "
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