J.Troup's opinion on BlazeTrak...

j.troup

New member
Okay...


There's been alot of discussion about "pay for submission" service offerings on FP. Although some are quite different, they all tend to get lumped into the same category by the majority of their target audience...(PMP, iStandard, Dynamic Producer, Taxi, etc, etc). There are alot of reputable services out there, but there are also alot of scams.

I wanted to give my take on the latest to pop up on FP's radar, Blazetrak.


Blazetrak is co-founded by Ron Harrison, the brother of Rich Harrison, who's credits include (but are not limited to) Beyonce's Crazy In Love. A high level overview of how the service works, is, for a submission fee, your track/song is reviewed by an industry professional of your choice, and a video feedback response from this industry professional is given to you.

The industry professionals range from (on the urban side) Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, Boi-1da, Teddy Riley, etc. The submission fee also varies, depending on the industry professional you choose to review your music, ranging from $25 per submission, to $150 per submission.

Blazetrak posts numerous successful connections, including users making successful connections to Rodney Jerkins, Midi Mafia, Boi-1da, and Infinity.



There the official overview of the company. Now, here's my opinion...




At first, I was dead set against paying ANYTHING to submit your tracks. I was of the opinion, "why pay a middle man, when you can do it directly yourself". This was before I experienced the sheer VOLUME of people trying to do the same thing. A&R's, artists and managers are BOMBARDED with any and every Tom, Dick and Harry, submitting their "audio lottery ticket", for a chance at fame and fortune. and 99.9% of the submissions are garbage...AND never get listened to.


A majority of FP also shares that sentiment. They'll NEVER pay for ANYTHING...ESPECIALLY a submission. They won't even pay for the software that they make their music on!!


My latest trip out to LA turned on a lightbulb for me. I went out to LA for the ASCAP "I Create Music" expo. My sole purpose for going was to get the music I was creating with a few artists, into the hands of as many people as I could...

Basically I went to submit music.


Now the costs for this trip to LA were....

$500 - Airfare
$800 - Hotel
$200 - Food
$200 - Custom pressed CD's
$200 - Misc Expenses
$200 - Conference Admission
-----------------------------------

$2,100 GRAND TOTAL.


Now...although the ASCAP conference was a phenomenal experience which taught me ALOT, I didn't really get to hand the music to as many people as i would have liked...DEFINITELY not $2,100 worth.


And then it hit me...I just spent over $2000 to fly to LA to submit music. Not only that, I've done same type of thing NUMEROUS times over the course of my pursuits. I've spent...

$500 - $1500 on 5 or so trips to NYC to meet with various industry personnel

$500 - $2000 each, on 3 separate trips to LA.

$1500 each on 2 trips to music conferences (Including One Stop Shop)


One of my most recent trips saw me flying to LA for 24 hours, to attend a after Grammy Party I had been invited to, because some big names were going to be in attendance.



So that's almost $10,000 spent, all in the pursuit of SUBMITTING MUSIC. Not to mention, there's no guarantee that ANY of my music will EVER be heard by ANYONE!!


So here's Blazetrak. They're saying that for $25 - $150...we GUARANTEE your music will be heard by the industry professional of YOUR CHOICE! Not only that, this person will record a VIDEO RESPONSE to your music.


So I can pay $2000 for the CHANCE to POSSIBLY get my music into someone's hands...or I can pay $150 for the GUARANTEE that my music will get listened to by the person that I choose, AND they will give me a video response to my music!



Now granted...I do see the industry professionals that Blazetrak offers as my COMPETITION. Meaning that I'm trying to get the same dollars that they are trying to get. And I understand that they will NEVER push me to be bigger than they are...the best I can hope for is to work FOR them, in order to make THEM more money. They aren't interested in making me a star...they are interested in how they can leverage my work to make THEM bigger stars.


But if your goal is to connect with the big name stars and work with them on producing/writing records for the big named artists, BlazeTrak seems to me to be a no brainer. It's guaranteed that your track will get to the person that you want it to get to, and you'll get the feedback that you are looking for.


Blazetrak has my stamp of approval. If you want to get your tracks to the professionals, and get feedback from them, this is the way to do it.
 
Thats a great way of putting it.

I'm not against blazetrak, I actually would hope to try it out some day.

Just need the extra money is all
 
i want opinions from guys i look up to not boi wonda an these other fools. if sonny sandoval or chino moreno or someone i look up to was on there then i would.
 
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I thought Troup was against majors, placements, etc.





.... just phuggin' with cha.

I wouldn't rule out any avenue that's reasonable. One thing I do know is that everything won't make sense to everyone. Some people wouldn't want to go to a conference even if it were in their city, some people probably think BlazTrak is a quick way for producers to make some nice dinner money. Some people will join PMP but not Dynamic Producer, some will join Dynamic Producer and not PMP. Some will sell on Soundclick and some will see it as being beneath them and only for teenagers that need money for new Jordans.

The only path I've seen that has a high success rate is the "connection" path. For some geographically it's hard to do. If you look at the FP members that are knocking on the door of being a name, you find that they are either in or moved to a music hub. V-Dub, Chase, Sleep, JackPot,Coop, WallBangerz etc... I always think being near where the "music people" are will give you better odds and make them feel like you're accessible and not hard to track down and all to other stuff that goes along with "distance" relationships.

Even the guys up here (Seattle) that have success have to have managers that work in LA...

It goes like this in my eye... Danja is from VA, he was accessible to Timbo. Pharrell is from VA, Teddy too... that dude that used to post here who a T in his name (can't remember) lived in GA and worked with Shawty Redd...
 
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troup donate money to me nigga.

and from all the investing u put in, u seem pretty wealthy already.

let one of us poor niggas rise.:cry::cry::cry:
 
Gotta respect Troup. After all these years, still trying to hang on to the dream. This nigga remind me of Cuba Gooding Jr. off "Men of Honor".
 
Gotta respect Troup. After all these years, still trying to hang on to the dream. This nigga remind me of Cuba Gooding Jr. off "Men of Honor".


I came into this with the understanding that it takes, on average, 10-12 years to get to the point where you're releasing commercially available records.


I just ended year 6 in May.


So I still have a while to go in my journey. I'm not in a hurry at all...I'm getting better every day, and learning so many things that are going to serve me well when I finally get "there".
 
I came into this with the understanding that it takes, on average, 10-12 years to get to the point where you're releasing commercially available records.


I just ended year 6 in May

yeah...

but sometimes we gotta wonder if that number changes as the times we live in change...and the circumstances we live in change...
 
I thought Troup was against majors, placements, etc.





.... just phuggin' with cha.




lol...


I'm not against majors....I'm not against major placements. What I am against is waiting on someone to GIVE you something that you can go out and GET yourself.

I see the industry and where it's going. And it doesn't make sense to me to line up to get on the Titanic, after it's already hit the Iceberg, simply because its "the most luxurious oceanliner ever".

Who buys dream tickets to board a sinking ship?

Make your own ship. You may not get across the atlantic as fast, or in as much style, but dammit, you WILL make it across!



Me personally, I'm not putting my all my eggs in the "major placement" basket. That's my angle.

---------- Post added at 09:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:55 PM ----------

yeah...

but sometimes we gotta wonder if that number changes as the times we live in change...and the circumstances we live in change...


I don't live my life wondering, afraid to make a move because of what MIGHT happen. I make a decision and I GO FOR IT...I adjust the plan along the way.


I've adjusted my plan 10 different times since I started on this road.



Can't be afraid to leave the house because it might rain. You just take an umbrella.
 
funny you make this thread...i follow rich harrison on twitter (fellow DC area native) so when I saw him do a retweet for Blazetrak i went on the site like an hour ago to see what it was about. for some people that want a more 'non-biased' look at their talent from majors, this could be a good thing, especially if you live in an area that lacks music industry presence. but IMO, if you are trying to be down with majors, there's some other things you probably should do as well to enhance your chances at success. For starters, live closer to them! For example they throw tons of networking events/parties in DC alone. if you are down with the concert/club promoters, have a great entertainment lawyer, and your musical projects (albums/artists you work with) are on point and got dope live shows/blogs buzzing, these people will find you, I can tell you guys this from personal experience.
 
Good post.....(not to highjack this post but whatever happened to musicplacements.com? I remember doing some research for like 2 months & wanted to see if they were legit cause I was gonna join. Everything I looked up came up good. But then I guess they are no longer around....since then, I've been real iffy joing sites like.)
 
Good post.....(not to highjack this post but whatever happened to musicplacements.com? I remember doing some research for like 2 months & wanted to see if they were legit cause I was gonna join. Everything I looked up came up good. But then I guess they are no longer around....since then, I've been real iffy joing sites like.)

I think those sites Die out not because they are scams but because, most producers have that mindset troup talks about. Eventually the "stars" that give the site any type of draw leave the site and they wither up and die.
 
I think those sites Die out not because they are scams but because, most producers have that mindset troup talks about. Eventually the "stars" that give the site any type of draw leave the site and they wither up and die.
not true soundclick far from died after soulja boy got his break after Sean Kingston got his break off harrassing j.rotem with his music on myspace it expanded
 
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