Trademarking your name

It's typically a good idea to trademark your name as soon as you choose one. Names get picked up really fast and so do good webpages (like yourname.com or myspace.com/yourname).

So why should you trademark your band name?

Imagine that there are two bands with your name floating around. Let's pretend your band gets popular and you sell some CD's, and the other band plans to sue you for trademark infringement. Here's the problem: they own the trademark to your name. Now you have to pay this band with your same name all the royalties. Doesn't sound fun does it? Imagine if you were on the other side of the ball. That sounds like more fun doesn't it?

How about this scenario? You own the trademark to your band name, but there's already a website and a myspace page with your name with a band declaring their name as yours. Well, now you can fight for both pages!

You may not actually need a lawyer at all in the cases mentioned above. In almost all cases, as soon as you mention you own the trademark, they will work with you to dispute it before the law gets involved. A good example of this happening is the drummer of my current band. His previous band owned a trademark to a band name and there was another band with the same name. As soon as they talked about, my drummer's band ended up getting free gear in exchange for the name.

So where do you go now?

http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm

This only applies for bands in America though. If you're from another nation, check with your government's website and check for trademarks and patents.

You may also want to check out http://www.bandname.com/ to see if your band name is taken or not (legally).

Naming your band

When you finally form a band, it's generally a good idea to give it a name. Here's what the name should contain:

• Represents you - You don't want a band name like "The Lollipop Guild" if you're a death metal band. It may sound funny, but in the long run some people will reject your band all together just because of the name, causing you to loose some fans.
• Easy to spell - I can't emphasis this one enough. I shouldn't be asking "how do you spell that?" when you pronounce your bands name at a concert. If you're a good band that I want to check out, I'll want to go home and search for it online. If I can't spell it, what use it is? It certainly doesn't help if somone wants to find your album in a store either.
• Don't make your name too long. The shorter it is, the easier it is to remember. Try keeping your name down to one or two words instead of a sentence.
• And most importantly, it can't be taken!

There are several ways of coming up with a good name, but here's some ideas:

• A dictionary - Open up to random pages and choose random words. Find one that fits your style of music or the subjects to your lyrics.
• A thesaurus - If the dictionary doesn't work, think of a word that matches what your band is about. Look it up in the thesaurus and find synonyms, or even antonyms.
• A book - Books are still used these days. Does your favorite book have a name of someone that represents your band? What about a fake town name? Even the book title works! (Ex: Amon Amarth is an alternative name for Mount Doom based off the Lord of the Rings series)
• A movie - Same as a book. Just don't call your band "The Matrix", Star Wars or anything ridiculous or I swear I will punch you in the stomach. (Ex: 36 Crazy Fists is named after a Jackie Chan movie)
• A video game - I haven't heard of this happening yet, but I am sure it exists. Try naming your band after a video game or even a character or location in the game.
• Song name - Some bands have a group of songs before they name their band. What about using a song name? What about a band that influenced your band, you can use one of their song names? (Ex: Carnal Forge is named after a song by Carcass).
• Lyrics - Maybe your favorite line in yours or someone else's lyrics are a good band name. (Panic! At the Disco was named after the song Panic by Name Taken)
• Sometimes a name of a historical figure or town is good. (Ex: Abigail Williams is named after one of the girls involved in the Salem witch trials)
• Mythological creatures also work, but they're almost all taken. (Ex: Chimaira is named after a greek mythological beast)
• Dead languages - There's a lot of extinct languages. Think of a word that describes your band and see if there's a translation of it in a language. Latin is a good place to start. (Ex: Dimmu Borgir means Dark Castle in Norse. The language is very well alive though).
• Astrology - There's a lot of stars and constellations in space. Try naming your band after these.

I hope this article helps you start you creative muscles.

Copyrighting your music

It's typically a good idea to copyright your music. Why? Well if someone decides to steal your music and make money off it, you can ask them to either pay all compensation or you will file a lawsuit. Of course, you don't want someone using your music without giving you credit either. So here's two methods:

1. Assuming you live in the US, you can file copyright either online or by CD for $35 with the US government at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/index.html
2. The free method is recording a CD and sending it to yourself with postal mail. It doesn't need to sound good. Burn it to a CD and head over to the post office and send it to yourself or one of your bandmates. Do not open it! If you do, consider the copyright void.

View the post on recording a cheap CD to learn how to record.

Recording on the cheap side (under $100)

Here's the cheapest way to record anything. This can cost as little as $100 if all you need is a USB interface (assuming you own a microphone, a computer and some headphonse already).

What you need:

1. Well first off you'll need a computer. Any computer will do just about. Just be sure you have about a 1 GB of space on your hard drive and I would recommend about 1 GB of RAM (minimum 512 MB).
2. Now you'll need recording software. There an excellent free one called Audacity. Very easy to use and there's plenty of documentation to help you out.
3. Are you software-ready yet? Now it's time to get the hardware. If you don't have a microphone, you'll need one. If you want technicality, I'd recommend a condensor microphone with a large diaphragm.
4. To connect the microphone to a computer you'll need a USB interface like M-Audio Fast Track. This may be the only the thing you need to buy. Your microphone will connect to the USB interface, and your interface to the computer. When you're done with this, open up audacity and test the microphone and see if it works.
5. It's time to record! Now there's 2 ways of doing this. You can do a click track and record each instrument seperately on seperate tracks. Or here's another method (my way)...

Pro-recording with one input:

1. Recording all the instruments is pretty easy, except the drums! I would recommend recording everyone (except the singer unless it's absolutely necessary) at the same time. If you have a drummer, you will need to concentrate the sound around them. Check out this video and read the description on how to perform this.
2. Put all the other amps around the microphone so you get an equal sound.
3. Now it's time to improve the quality. Isolate the drummer from everyone else and give them some head phones (studio headphones are recommended). Connect the headphones to the USB interface. Record a new track without deleting the one the whole band made, and have the drummer overdub (record on top of) it.
4. Once the drums are completed, isolate the guitarist in the same fashion and have them overdub the same way the drummer did, this time including the drum tracks. I'd recommend lowering the volume of the full band and raising the volume of the drum tracks.
5. Repeat step 4 for each member of the entire band until you're done.
6. Go ahead and delete the first track with the full band (and click track if you used it) and you're complete with recording! I'd also recommend using this time to work on equalization and fixing the sound levels.
7. Be sure to let everyone sit on it over night before completing it. What I mean by this is export the song file as an mp3 and either burn it to a CD or send it via e-mail to each member. Let every member listen to it a few times that night to see if they want to fix, add, change or delete something. The next time everyone gets together, you can make any necessary changes before marking the song as complete.

Some more tips:

• Audacity will probably record in Mono only. To convert this to stereo, follow this guide at eHow.com.
• Microphones with a large frequency range are usually the best to record with.
• This is a long process. If something doesn't sound perfect, keep doing it until it is.
• Noise cancellation studio headphones are the best headphones for studio work.
• Snare drums have a tendancy to vibrate a lot. Use moon gel to prevent this. If you can't afford a pack of moon gels, just make a little box with duct tape and tape it to the top of the snare. Do the same with the toms if they're causing vibration problems too.
• When you're recording, be sure to not go beyond the boundries. While recording, you will see waves on the track you're recording that show up verticle in Audacity. If these waves reach the top or the bottom of the track, then you're recording too loud and the quality will be horrible.
• Don't put the microphone right in front of the speakers when you're recording the guitars. Leave about 4 inches of distance. They will sound too muddy otherwise.
• You do not need to spend hundreds to get a program like Pro Tools or Sony Acid to get good quality. These programs only allow more mixing and after-effect processing options compared to Audacity.
• If you want to submit this as a demo, you may want to take it to some professional to master it. This should only cost $50 at max and they'll make sure all volume, bass, treble, etc. levels are similar.

Stay in good terms!

I've noticed this especially in the metal world, but don't have a "bad ass" attitude with everyone you meet. Don't be egotistical and obnoxious. You won't succeed if you are. One of the largest secrets to a successful band is by staying in good terms with everyone you meet.

Be respectful to every band you play with or don't play with. Try to be at the show before the first band goes on (unless it's you of course) and stay until the last band is done. Support the bands and try to be in front of the stage, give them high fives, scream for them, etc. whenever possible. Why would I say this? The other bands will strongly support you and your band in future shows. I remember the first time I stayed and supported another band my band played with. I stood in the front and went wild. Throughout their entire show they said "I'd like to thank [my band] for playing with us tonight! They're an amazing band! Check them out when you get a chance!" Ever since then, we have supported each other by helping each other get shows or just showing up to each others shows just to say hi. In return, we trade merchandise, play shows together and just have fun.

Be friendly with the venues and booking agents you play for. Remember, they're not just booking your band to help you out. In fact, almost 99% of the time they're booking bands to make money. Be sure to thank them during your set. After you're done, personally go over to the booking agent and thank them: "I appreciated working with you and we look foward to working with you in future." Say it even if you don't mean it! You never know where they may end up working at or with. You don't want them telling you "Well, you weren't really nice so thanks but no thanks." Okay, that's an exaggeration. More accurately, they probably won't respond to your email or voice mail. Even if you do get a hold of them, they'll probably say "let me see what I can do and I'll call you back". And they won't. Just remember that they will probably talk to other venues and booking agents to. Stay on good terms with one and you'll stay on good terms with all.

Finally, be kind to members who are trying out and don't make it or former members. What ever happened in the past is the past. Support what ever their decisions are even if it's not in your best interest. You never know if they'll be in a band that could help you get a show or in a record label in the future. A perfect example of this happened just the other day with my band. We were trying out other guitarists and this guy called me before he tried out and said: "Hey, I appreciate the opportunity you gave me but I decided to start my own band." My response: "Well great! Thanks for the call and good luck in the future. Please call me if you'd like to set up a show sometime!". A similar situation happened in a past band and we got shows in another state very easily.