The week after Mumford & Sons’ sophomore album Babel was released in the U.S. on September 25, it sold 600,000 copies in the U.S. alone. That huge number is not necessarily unexpected, but here are some notes that describe exactly how high that 600k number is:
* Babel had the biggest debut sales week of any album to date this year
* It is the biggest sales week of any rock album in almost four years
* It is the first number one hit on the Billboard 200 albums chart for indie label Glassnote Records
* It’s number one debut marks the sixth year in a row that an indie album has gone to number one on the chart.
Those last two points are the reason I’m writing about the British lads today. If you’ve read a couple of these blogs, you’ve probably discovered that we here at Sage Audio love us some indie artists, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that it’s mainly indie artists that use our online mastering services. So we love it when an indie artist makes good.
As you would expect, so does Daniel Glass – founder of Glassnote Records.
“[There’s been] a lot of excitement, and a lot of validation to be an independent,” Glass told Billboard after the huge sales week. “I don’t get hung up on the numbers – it’s the first week, and you can go nuts with that stuff. I’m just so happy that people embraced the music and were as excited as we were… and the streaming figures are huge, but the sales are great.”
According to Billboard, Babel easily broke Spotify’s records for streams of an album in a single week. The album garnered around eight million listens during its first week. That translates to around one out of every 10 U.S. Spotify users.
“When you have quality and you’re in the sophomore stage of this band’s career, I think the fear of holding it back is worse than letting it go,” Glass commented about the streaming figures. “Opening up the faucet and letting people hear it, stream it and all that stuff is definitely very health, and I think people inherently want to purchase an artifact, a memento, so they have a piece of it now that they streamed it.”
This view is basically the exact opposite view of Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine Records. That company is also an independent label, and home to Taylor Swift. Borchetta said recently he feels like the only group benefiting from streaming music sites like Spotify and Pandora are the major record labels.
Of course, both Big Machine and Glassnote Records partner with major label distributors (Glassnote uses Sony’s RED Distribution). Additionally, Mumford & Sons is signed to Island Records or its parent company Universal in all parts of the world that aren’t the U.S.
Mumford & Sons’ first album, Sigh No More, scored Glassnote a number two hit back in 2011. The label also had a large indie hit with Phoenix’s 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
So, Why A Membership?
Let’s face it — trying to create professional mixes without the correct knowledge, tools, services, and network is like playing a concert with a broken instrument to an audience of no one.
That’s where the Sage Audio membership comes in — the membership gives you everything you need to create professional mixes consistently.
The membership is the secret to your success — it’s the difference between the 1,929,999,999 of poor-sounding mixes and the .00000002% of mixes that make people say 'WOW!"
There are 7 unique value-points included in your Sage Audio membership.
Let’s go over each one so you can decide if the membership is right for you.
1. Sage Audio University
- SAU Flagship Mixing Course: 23-video in-depth mixing course that reveals the little-known secrets of mixing and matches the needs of the new music industry.
- SAU Flagship Mastering Course: 19-video in-depth modern mastering course that dives into every nuance of making professional-sounding masters.
- SAU Pre-Mastering Course: Concise pre-mastering course that details the latest industry standards for preparing your mixes for mastering.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from budding mixing engineers to advanced engineers. The techniques and concepts taught can be applied to any DAW to create industry-leading mixes without expensive software or plugins - and free plugin alternatives are suggested throughout each course.
- Each SAU course includes Start-to-Finish session walkthrough lessons for multiple genres so you can follow along with your preferred genre.
- SAU Certification Document, which can be downloaded and showcased on your website and social channels.
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2. Private 1-on-1 Mentorship
- The Sage Audio private 1-on-1 Mentorship gives you direct access to us for advanced mixing feedback, in-depth discussions, and customized guidance that's tailored to your specific needs.
- Unlimited private access to us for advanced mixing feedback, where we provide detailed suggestions for improvement.
- Unlimited private access to us for in-depth discussions to help you improve every aspect of your mixes and masters.
- Customized guidance that’s tailored specifically to your needs.
- Fast communication so you can improve your skills quickly.
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3. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited professional mixing feedback directly from us so you can consistently improve your skills and create professional mixes.
- Mixing feedback is invaluable, and the Sage Audio membership gives you continual direct access to us for real-world feedback so you can improve every aspect of each of your mixes while you're in the process of mixing.
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4. 50 Free Mastered Songs Per Year
- 50 free mastered songs per year with your own dedicated professional mastering engineer so you can get all your mixes sounding like professional songs.
- You get your own dedicated Sage Audio mastering engineer to create custom masters that are specific to you and sound exactly how you want.
- Unlimited revisions with your dedicated mastering engineer. As a standard of our service, we are not happy until you are happy with the sound of your masters.
- All masters are delivered as commercial, industry-standard high-resolution 24-bit HD WAV masters so they will sound clean and clear on every platform.
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5. Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers who can provide you with additional real-world mixing feedback, meaningful discussions, networking, collaborations, and more.
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6. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content
- 36 multitrack sessions spanning multiple genres for mixing practice.
- 57 un-mastered mixes spanning multiple genres for mastering practice.
- 62 Recommended Free Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 39 Recommended Paid Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 71 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
- Sage Audio Membership Badge to showcase on your website, social channels, and portfolio.
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7. 800+ Video Catalog
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into categories so you can easily take a deep dive into all aspects of audio engineering with thousands of hours of concise, expertly crafted Sage Audio videos to continually improve your skills at your own pace.
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