A Website is Selling Readymade Songs to Kickstart Your Own EDM Career

DJs are among the highest earning musicians on the planet, demanding huge fees for appearances with few of the overheads of live bands. According to Forbes, last year Calvin Harris earnt $46m, Swedish House Mafia made $25m and Tiesto pocketed $32m, all for making a few Fruity Loops beats and pressing automix on Serato.

These guys don’t have it easy, though. Many are cruelly overworked. Right now people expect them to make as many as 15 new tracks a year. Thankfully, Producer Factory are here to help. And by help, I mean that they’ll allow you to skip all the unnecessary parts, like actually writing your own music, and bring you straight into the important stuff, that executive level gwop. Essentially, they are selling ready made EDM tracks to aspiring millionaires, meaning that talentless producers will no longer have to spam everyone’s Facebook pages to gain tract, but that they will be able to purchase their own success from an online vending machine.

I’d always fancied myself as a bit of a Guetta, so I decided to pay the Producer Factory a visit. A quick tour of their website revealed a wide range of genres on offer, including dubstep, tech-house and electro step.

Inside each genre portlet are individual tracks, available for purchase. For the small price of £279.2 (yeah, me neither), I could have been the proud owner of “Fork & Spoon”. Which doesn’t sound like a great name for a track, but when you consider that Tiesto’s last three singles were called “Move To The Rhythm”, “Love And Run” and “Paradise”, I figured I’d be being spoonfed space biscuits by Diplo at Electric Daisy Carnival in no time. Especially as, according to the site, whoever purchases the track retains all rights.

However, because I spent my last £279 on a pair of headphones to be like everyone else, I couldn’t afford to buy “Fork & Spoon”, and my dreams were crushed. I asked Producer Factory if they could send a preview of one of their masterpieces through so that I could show you guys, but they weren’t keen. Instead, if you’re willing to play devils advocate (read: use the internet properly), here’s a cracked link to some of the songs available for purchase on their site.

Afterwards, because I wanted to find out more about the new service, I spoke to the guys behind the site, which they then tried to turn into an advert.*

What was your intention when starting the website?

Our intention was simply to create a new source of income for excellent producers to assist their own ventures and for DJ's to have the chance to work with top professionals to realise their musical ideas and concepts. Equipment and marketing are two expensive but necessary acquisitions to push on one's career as a producer. The mass of DJ's who are skilled entertainers also need a factor of individuality to stand out from the crowd. Alas it is not easy getting your Alias nowadays to a point where it doesn't drown in the EDM industry. Producer Factory offers tracks suited to your style and also the option of creating your own in a comfortable and secure environment. Not all DJ's posses production skills and not all producers are talented entertainers, so why not merge the two strengths and offer a fantastic experience to the consumer who is in my opinion the most important for the industry.

You speak like a robot. Is your service popular?

Producer Factory has gathered much more attention than initially expected, but this has been no problem for our team and we have successfully surpassed every milestone so far. The fantastic support from our producers and customers has been and always will be gratefully received. Producer Factory also never expected the top quality submissions that we now have in our shop and generated from our custom tracks. Just now I received the step 1 demo for a custom track from Lukas Stars and I'm playing it over my speakers whilst answering these questions.

What kind of people buy songs from the site? I’m imagining lots of teenage boys.

Well all expectations apparently point to lazy useless DJ's, but I can assure you we have had such positive and enthusiastic people contacting us willing to push on their career. The majority also became returning customers after their first experience with Producer Factory. This, to be honest, really pleases us as we too are enthusiastic and passionate about what we do. Our service works around the clock to answer any questions you may have in full extent, we don't cut corners and certainly don't allow a lack of quality product and service in or out of our shop.

Is it really fair to say that a song is "by" the person that buys it when they didn't write it?

Why not ask this question to any large DJ signed to a big label who it would make no business sense to place in the studio when they could be out making money on stage. This choice also lies with the producer. If the producer thinks this is fair then so be it, it's their work so they can do whatever they want with it. We simply offer the over the table solution which provides both sides with security. The amount of producers and customers who have mentioned that they have been ripped off working on a project outside of Producer Factory and before we ever existed is horrific. This seems to be the norm, so now we will change that and offer a place where one can happily have your track produced affordably and by top artists.

Ouch, did I touch a nerve? Anyway, have you had much feedback?

Yes, we have generated large amounts of feedback. Producer Factory has generated a lot of positive feedback through excellent experiences with our concept and service and negative through apparent disbelief. The range of comments we have received have been extraordinary for example, "You guys rock AND you've got balls" to "Happy suicides".

Is it fair to say that respected electronic artists don't put much effort into their songs? Especially if, as you’re saying, it doesn’t make ‘business sense’.

No, certainly not. The artists mentioned are the producers and the effort put in is unmatched. These people have to run their own business, advertise and deliver product under strict guidelines, which is why many artists are beginning to leave the big labels and are slowly drifting to the newcomers such as ourselves. These mentioned are excellent composers and sound engineers who have freely chosen to just get paid for their work and not represent it. The DJ's are the people that put on the show with well deserved highly praised skill and fame that encompasses their whole immediate life. This is a sacrifice that is also unmatched and should be given credit as well as making your night-lives a time to remember.

This is a form of ghostwriting. Is that something that goes on a lot in the industry?

Yes it certainly is. What business sense is there for a superstar DJ to spend time in a studio when he/she could be out making money traveling the world? For them to do their job well they must focus on the task at hand and not the pressure the big labels place the producers under with deadlines and guidelines for tracks. This is logical business efficiency that we see in every industry.

Thanks for repeating yourself and for turning an artform into a business mind set. Why do you offer a “fake” soundcloud play pack? That’s surely not fair…

These packs are not "fake", but allow the customers profile to reach a level that is noticeable and acceptable for a labels standard for acceptance. It also helps gain interest in your profile whether you make music, create videos or you have your own website. It gives the consumer confidence that your product is worth while reviewing if 10, 000 people have previously engaged with it. It's a type of advertising that allows a large increase of real activity towards your online profiles.

Sounds pretty fake to me. Anyway, before I go. What’s your opinion of the current EDM scene?

Our opinion is that the EDM scene is not thriving as much as it should, especially in the lower tiers. The skills the big boys have must be open for all involved without restriction and this service is what we offer. Why not allow this freedom when we can all benefit from logical teamwork?

Okay then. I’d love to take you out to dinner sometime, you sound really fun. CYA!

*This is not an advert.

Follow Dan on Twitter @KeenDang

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