SoundBetter.com
About a year and a half ago, I was visiting my sister in Southern California when I found myself listening to a gentleman playing his mandolin on a street bench as I strolled in for coffee at a local café early one morning.
As a songwriter I’m always intrigued by instrumentalists, and this fellow was making his mandolin talk. After our pleasantries became a bit of some song shoptalk, I asked him whether he did session work. He said he did–and then advised me to check out a website called SoundBetter.com where he and hundreds of other players could be hired online by songwriters in such a fashion–at very affordable prices.
Once I did so, I found myself with what has been a remarkable resource since moving to Nashville as a writer and musician.
Need a guitar player? Vocalist? Fiddle player? Mixer? Full production? It’s all there in spades, with song and playing samples from every artist and pro.
For an example of the services, let’s say you’re a songwriter that doesn’t have a voice like Steve Perry and you want your new song to shine with the vocal. A singer you find on SoundBetter (whose music and stylings are there to hear on his or her page) reads your request to him for his talents to help out on the new tune.
That vocalist then sends you a proposal for the singing–if he’s free and interested in doing it. The proposal fee–say, $150–is put into escrow by SoundBetter once you have accepted the proposal and the money stays there until you are satisfied with the final product from that vocalist.
You write something like: “Hey, Grant–I wrote this cool country jam called ‘Honky Tonk Boots’ and I think you have the voice to kill it. Interested?” You include your demo of the song for him to hear. It can be a simple, bare-bones demo. That’s what they expect.
Most of these players have excellent studios to do their work, and for every project I’ve commissioned, I’ve gotten clean WAV stem files on each job. Beyond the great work, songwriters make friends and connections on SoundBetter. Relationships are formed. Deals are even made.
This gives the songwriter the power of a junior producer. The artists on SoundBetter are there to make the project shine with their work. That means that they might be doing revisions–so don’t sweat that! These folks are pros! The project ain’t done and the money ain’t paid until the client is happy!
I’ve now had several song projects using SoundBetter, and though it has a learning curve, my expectations in the service are usually exceeded by the work done! I’ve now found it to be an indispensable tool in my song demo process.
Do yourself a favor and visit SoundBetter, explore, and turn your bare-bones demos into pro-standard songs. After a short time in Nashville, I’ve discovered the one thing that’s important, no, vital, in trying to sell songs. Present as professional a song demo as you can afford.
You can do it. SoundBetter.com can really help.