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I have recently started featuring artists on my blog who are raising money to make their next album. Some artists create a campaign on their own, while others use services like Kickstarter. All of a sudden, artists are starting to regard me as an expert on the subject of how to do this, but I'm learning, just like everybody else. So I would like to hear from people who have tried to raise money to make an album. What works and what doesn't? Are there other services out there that are worth knowing about?

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Lots of artists, big and small record their own albums on modest equipment these days. ReverbNation has their "store" feature where you can upload all of the tracks and cover art to create an impressive, professional package. They look and sound as good as the files you upload and can include ISRC codes and also UPC codes. Ive done 2 discs now and I'm very pleased with the results. The big question is how to sell it. I've sold a handful online and quite a few of the bulk order I bought at my shows but the reality is, a lot of people don't but cd's anymore. I-tunes etc have become the biggest means of distribution for artists big and small. Personally, I still like to have the physical package but the times they are a changing. There is so much music available for free on YouTube, MySpace and all over the internet, it's no wonder that cd sales have plummeted. It almost doesn't make sense to spend gobs of cash to record an album at a big commercial studio when even the retail cd chains are going broke.

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If you have a sizeable fan-base, you could do what I think Marillion pioneered many years ago - and that was to ask fans to pre-purchase a copy of the yet-to-be-made album. In their case it was very successful.

My band was never in a position to raise money to make an album. We funded them ourselves.  But you can get the recording gear for relatively small amounts of money these days. In our case:

Mac computer for recording on (One of the band members had this already).
Logic audio software (premium version of the time, which cost very little - I think around £150 - and did all we wanted, and more).
MOTU 24 input recording interface (the most expensive single item - bought new for about £1,500)
Microphones (Connection in the business meant I was able to borrow a couple of classy, large diaphragm condenser mics, and we already owned a Rode stereo condenser, an AKG D120 and four SM58s.)
We scraped around and  found five pairs of headphones.
Various leads we already owned.
Foldback was covered by the MOTU.
I used my hifi amp and speakers for playback.

We searched and asked around and eventually found a space we could use for free (actually we bought the owners a karaoke machine for their kids) to record the rhythm tracks - ie all the noisy stuff with drums. Overdubs and mixing were done at home. I think our total costs for making the album came in at about £2,800, excluding manufacturing (see below), and we still have all the equipment.

What's harder to get is the expertise to get the best out of it. We had that covered, as I've been a recording/mastering engineer by trade all my working life. But it shouldn't be difficult to find enough expertise to do a passable job - there seem to be many recording engineering courses these days, so there'll probably be a lot of folks around wanting to get their hands on an album project for experience.

As Steve says above, CDs are a bit old fashioned these days. (It grieves me to say this. CDs were never perfect, but with good ad/da converters in the recording process, great results have been achieved. MP3s are a big step backwards and iTunes messes with the sound also. I would have hoped that what replaced CD would be an improvement in audio quality, but the reverse is true).

However, this is where we are, and a consequence is that you don't have to spend a grand on manufacture. You can just sell your songs on iTunes or use Reverbnation's package for instance - again as Steve mentioned.

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It seems to me that people make CDs these days for a couple of reasons. They can be sent to venues and promoters and festival runners to get gigs. There are still music bloggers like myself who prefer to receive music submissions this way. And people buy them at shows as keepsakes. So CDs may not be the revenue source they once were, but they still serve a purpose. Mind you, I am not a musician, so I'm speculating here. Comments, please, from those who know.

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Martin, I must tell you that some not very well known musicians are successfully raising funds from their fans for their projects. And a couple of the artists I have posted about tell me that they received donations from strangers, and they think it was my fault. So this is not just for the Marillons of the world.

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Well that's good news Darius!

It never occurred to us that we should try anything like that - but that was because we never really got anywhere playing live. The house concerts were good, and people were happy to buy CDs at those, but at almost all the other venues we played, we barely sold CDs and almost no-one joined our mailing lists. If we'd been able to play much more regularly, we might have built up a following that we would have been able to raise the funds for an album with.

I would be interested if anyone has had success at this, and what they did (as per your original post). Also, did they then go into a studio, or buy the guy to do it themselves.

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Martin, I have one more suggestion in the recording gear department that we used on our last CD. You folks might laugh and admittedly this wasn't really a pro quality recording but it worked for us. We were tracking rhythm guitar, bass and drums live as well as a scratch vocal. We had guitar amps acoustically isolated and sometimes DI'd the bass so one problem we ran into was amps to drive the headphones. Our bass player went to second hand stores and bought old home stereo amps really cheap. In the $20 Canadian range. As long as they have an aux input and a headphone jack they serve the purpose. With these cheap amps, we were able to send different mixes to each player through aux sends on the mixer and each player had a volume control for their own set of headphones right beside them. It really worked well.

Even though our project was all DIY and the results aren't as pristine as what a pro studio could achieve, I'm completely satisfied. Without the expense and pressure of a pro studio, we could take our time and really had a lot of fun.