The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has recently updated its “Digital Single” award for record sales to account for streams. Under the new rules, units are measured as follows: 1 unit = 1 permanent download or 100 on-demand audio and/or video streams.
Just like with physical sales, 500,000 units equal a Gold award and 1,000,000 units equal a Platinum. 2,000,000 or more earn a multi-platinum certification.
The RIAA measures the digital success of artists, across all platforms of digital consumption of music by tracking stats from all major digital music stores, music streaming services, and video streaming services.
With the new terms for the award, Katy Perry has dominated the top spot for the Digital Sales Award with 72,000,000 units. This is thanks to international superhits such as “Firework” and “Roar.” Also topping the list are Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Eminem and Kanye West.
As the industry trends seem to be leaning more and more towards streaming and less and less toward purchasing music, the RIAA is likely looking to maintain its iconic Gold and Platinum awards’ relevancy in a future where fans prefer to rent their music. Unfortunately, the RIAA hasn’t shared details as to why it chose to value streams as it has in its certification process.
Interestly, by accepting 100 streams per unit the RIAA has essentially valued a stream at around 1.25 cents. In contrast, Spotify has valued a stream to be between 0.6 and 0.84 cents per stream. As digital streaming royalties are a hot topic and point of contention in the music industry right now, it’s possible that the RIAA’s choice to value a stream as a 1/100th of a sale would be considered in negotiations.
Make Pro Songs
There are 8 unique value-points inside the Sage Audio membership, so let’s go over each one so you can decide if it’s the right fit for you.
1. 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’ll 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 Sage Audio 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.
2. 1-on-1 Mentorship
- The Sage Audio 1:1 Mentorship gives you direct access to us to answer all your questions and receive unlimited advanced mixing feedback directly from us.
- Unlimited direct access to us for in-depth discussions to help you improve your mixes and masters.
- Unlimited advanced mixing feedback with detailed suggestions for improvement.
- Fast communication to answer all your questions and get tailored guidance that’s specific to your needs.
3. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited mixing feedback so you can improve your mixes quickly.
- This is highly valuable - giving you access to a thriving community of mixing engineers who can provide feedback about what you can improve before sending your mix to be professionally mastered.
4. Sage Audio University™ (SAU) — (Mixing and Mastering Education Platform)
- SAU is a modern audio engineering education platform that includes in-depth mixing and mastering course curriculums that match the new music industry.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from first-time 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 every course curriculum.
- SAU course curriculums include 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, social channels, and portfolio for as long as you remain a member.
- Get first access to all future SAU course curriculums to continually build and refine your mixing and mastering skills as the industry evolves.
5. Mixing and Mastering Competitions
- Compete in Mixing Competitions and Mastering Competitions to win prizes and connect with friends and colleagues.
- This is a great collaborative way to improve your skills alongside both aspiring engineers and seasoned industry professionals.
6. Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers who can provide you with real-world mixing feedback, meaningful discussions, networking, collaborations, and more.
7. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content, Including:
- 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).
- 58 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
- Sage Audio Membership Badge to showcase on your website, social channels, and portfolio.
8. 700+ Video Catalog
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into playlists so you can 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 mixing and mastering skills at your own pace.
