Unsigned artist / band?

[BEAgent]

If so, you can be involved in the startup of a brand new website. Band Engine (http://www.bandengine.co.uk) aims to offer unsigned musicians and bands the following:

Competitions & Showcases - get featured on a Band Engine (http://www.bandengine.co.uk) digital album
Music reviews - receive good quality reviews of your songs
Hall Of Fame - For the highest rated artists & bands
Featured Artist Slots - For the most popular artists & bands
Promotion - Band Engine digital albums are sent out in promotion packs
Website Design - Specialist construction for unsigned music
Digital Sound Engineering - Enhance the overall sound of your tracks

We also plan to introduce a wide range of features as the site continues to grow including a platform that allows you to license your music plus we can take an active interest in financing unsigned artists / bands.

Check it out now!

www.bandengine.co.uk (http://www.bandengine.co.uk)

[Velvett Fogg]

Hi BEAgent

First of all
WELCOME to the forum,
and we hope you take a look around.

Thanks for your post, hopefully our members will be interested.
I have also copied your post into our Marketing and Promotion thread

[BEAgent]

Thanks for that. We've had some great bands register with us and we are soon to announce a new A&R Engine Room which artists/bands may be interested in, we'll post more details soon.

We also have some exciting developments happening in the background which we hope will really help the site take off.

[JohnDTraynor]

I perused the Band Engine website. What does it offer bands? A website and a song on a compilation CD. Er, wow! A website eh? That's marvellous. For an inital one-off charge and a maintenance fee (neither of which is stated in monetary terms; that is, how much). It's easy for a band to create a website (for a fee and monthly/yearly charge) where they can design it exactly as they want to, or they can have a free myspace. Why on earth would they need Band Engine to create one for them?

Then there's the digitally-enhancement of the bands' recordings. How bad would the recording have to be for the digital-enhancement to demonstrate any improvement? No details are given.

And the compilation CDs? According to the Terms & Conditions, the bands can sell copies if they want, though I have no idea who would buy a CD of a few eclecticly-chosen bands whose presence on the CD bears no relation to the quality of their music. And the CDs are sent to labels, promoters etc. Why would any such people bother listening to them?

And that's it.

So, nothing really, except some undisclosed fees.

And no contact address, just an e-mail.

But, an endless waffling Terms & Conditions page.

[BEAgent]

I perused the Band Engine website. What does it offer bands? A website and a song on a compilation CD. Er, wow! A website eh? That's marvellous. For an inital one-off charge and a maintenance fee (neither of which is stated in monetary terms; that is, how much). It's easy for a band to create a website (for a fee and monthly/yearly charge) where they can design it exactly as they want to, or they can have a free myspace. Why on earth would they need Band Engine to create one for them?

Then there's the digitally-enhancement of the bands' recordings. How bad would the recording have to be for the digital-enhancement to demonstrate any improvement? No details are given.

And the compilation CDs? According to the Terms & Conditions, the bands can sell copies if they want, though I have no idea who would buy a CD of a few eclecticly-chosen bands whose presence on the CD bears no relation to the quality of their music. And the CDs are sent to labels, promoters etc. Why would any such people bother listening to them?

And that's it.

So, nothing really, except some undisclosed fees.

And no contact address, just an e-mail.

But, an endless waffling Terms & Conditions page.


You are severely mistaken.

There are no charge or fees at all unless someone 'chooses' to buy a seperate service such as web design. Only then would they have to pay maintenance charges though this is not even part of the album scheme and seperate services are not being offered at the moment.

Neither do artists get a website, they get featured on a promotional compilation album which gets promoted through our wide network of third party link-ups and partnerships for maximum exposure.

There is a brief description of the sound enhancement service here:
http://www.bandengine.co.uk/about.html

Each featured band owns the copyright to their song which features on the album, if they all pull together and sell copies they form a unique distribution network and can demonstrate their self-promotional efforts which I think you'll find some of them are pretty good at. Why wouldn't musicians want to sell their music?

'Such people' would listen to them because we have linked up and partnered with them and it's being sent as solicited mail which they have shown a strong interest in.

For anyone in doubt check out the About section here:
http://www.bandengine.co.uk/about.html
And the Terms & Conditions here:
http://www.bandengine.co.uk/terms&conditions.html

Also, artists are not selected eclectically, they are filtered out via our A&R review process. And an endless waffling terms & conditions page is a legal necessity for any website. It's a legal requirement and nothing can be done about that.

[WaxMan]

Ok, guys...

John, while I undestand your frustration at many agencies trying to rip bands off, please remember that not all people are out to do this and they need to make a living too. In this instance I think that BEAgent has at least debated the points you raised, and contested your concerns. I think our disclaimer is a good place to point the bands to... Keith took some time to write that and if you would like to add to it then please let us know.

I hope that resolves this.
Cheers
WM