A few people sat together, discussing topics such as the future of the workshop and its development path. Everyone present, including Huang Wenjuan, who is considered a necessary employee of the future workshop, was very concerned about this matter. Even Wang Jingluo, although she looked a bit confused by the topic, still had a very interested expression.

  Everyone was discussing heatedly, and it seemed that after being pointed out the difficulties they would face in their future development, everyone became even more emotional. Li Qian couldn't help but share his thoughts on the future development of the workshop with everyone, exchanging ideas.

  He is now going to set up, just a music and entertainment personal workshop, but the foundation is built according to the specifications of a small record company, including the size of the office address, the overall decoration design direction, as well as some professional equipment that will be slowly delivered and installed in the future, all are like this.

  So, is it difficult to start a record company, a record company that can stand firm in the industry?

  In Li Qian's opinion, saying it is easy is also easy, and saying it is difficult is also very difficult.

  Broadly speaking, a mature record company needs to be composed of three major parts: production capability, distribution capability and singers.

  And to some extent, the first two determine the third one.

  Of course, from the perspective of the entire industry, if you don't want to be controlled by others in the future, it's best for a record company to have its own independent production capacity.

  It's just that from now on, this point is not indispensable. The most important thing is still those three points mentioned above.

  Of course, when it comes to these things, logically speaking, the famous singer Liao Liao should be more familiar with them. However, firstly, she rose to fame too quickly and didn't have time to experience and savor the process of struggling from the bottom up. Secondly, in terms of understanding and grasping the entire music industry, she still can't compare to Li Qian who has had twenty years of deep experience. So most of the time, it's Li Qian who speaks, while Liao Liao listens attentively like everyone else.

  For her, Li Qian occasionally has some words that have a profound meaning, and she feels extremely rewarded. For people like Qi Jie, Wang Jinglu, and Huang Wenjuan, it's just pure popular science education - they don't need to have a deep understanding, as long as they roughly understand how records are made and sold to fans.

  For record companies, the first priority is production capability.

  In fact, the future Li Qian studio wants to make records, what can be had from the very beginning and must be the most skilled at it, is this production ability.

  And so-called production capabilities can be divided into several major blocks.

  First, you need to have song works, and it's necessary to constantly produce new works every year. This requires a record company, whether signing contract with songwriters or having extensive connections in the industry, to be able to obtain works from many independent musicians. In short, works are the source of music, this must be guaranteed.

  Perhaps in the end, a company collects one thousand new works in a year, but only one hundred or even dozens of them are finally selected, produced and released as songs. However, the nine hundred discarded works do not necessarily become worthless. Although they may not be suitable, or their quality is not good enough, or their style does not match. In short, although they were eliminated, their existence is a crucial part of ensuring the quality of a record company's products, and it is something that record companies must have.

  He smiled and gave an analogy to the girls: "This is like the entire Tang Dynasty having countless poets, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, writing poems, producing tens of thousands or even millions of works, most of which have no literary value. But it's precisely because of their existence that they formed the grand atmosphere of poetry in the Tang Dynasty. Later, generation after generation, people naturally selected the masterpieces from the vast ocean of poems and passed them down, resulting in the magnificent and beautiful poetry of the prosperous Tang era."

  "This example is very simple, even if you're just a middle school graduate, you can fully understand it, so everyone was nodding in agreement. At this time, Liao Liao also said: "As for the second album, there's no need to say more, 'Tao Sheng Yi Ji' is completely your responsibility, right? It's convenient for me and the producer, but when I made the first album, you didn't know that I had collected over 70 songs, but only five of them met my standards before I got those five songs from you. You can imagine the elimination rate! Of course, I think it's mainly because Longsheng Records' old Chen hasn't opened up his connections, so we could get some works, but it's hard to get outstanding ones."

  Li Qian nodded in agreement with her statement.

  Of course, it's the same old saying that this department may be very important for other record companies, but for Li Qian, who has a vast amount of resources, at least in the first few years, he doesn't have to worry about lacking resources and can take it easy.

  To put it simply, if we don't consider the issue of long-term benign development, then at least in the short term, Li Qian himself can take on all the work that a large number of lyricists, composers, and arrangers who are supported by other record companies with huge costs, and whether in terms of efficiency or quality of work, he can beat them all, guaranteeing that everything he produces is a masterpiece.

  So next, after having a sufficient number of music works to choose from, the next step is the producer.

  Play a pivotal role, inherit and carry forward, grasp the overall situation.

  He is responsible for selecting works with high quality, easy to listen and sing along, and suitable for the singer's style from numerous music works. Then, whether it's a contracted musician of the company or an independent musician, these selected works will be arranged and recorded into demos, becoming an important choice when the singer releases an album.

  Once it's confirmed to be included in a singer's new album, the song will go through another round of polishing. Some may need slight modifications and adjustments to the lyrics or melody, while others may require re-arranging and fine-tuning.

  It is at this time that a song will truly come before a singer.

  Is the style of music suitable or not? Can the emotional tone be found accurately? Is the voice suitable for interpretation? Is the arrangement suitable or not?

  At this stage, after repeated back-and-forth polishing between the singer and producer, a song may even go through many versions of arrangement, and almost always requires multiple adjustments to the singing style. Finally, it begins to take shape gradually.

  In this series of processes, a record company, whether it is its own signed musician or an external liaison with independent musicians. What it needs to provide includes several versions of arrangements from different people, professional producers or supervisors to control quality, and a large number of musicians above the standard, as well as several versions of accompaniment formed due to different arrangements.

  Up to this point, a record company's production department has merely completed the first part of its work.

  Moreover, at this stage, there are also many works that have been done with great effort but may not be used in the end. For example, when a singer is about to release a new album and needs ten to twelve new songs, the producer has to prepare at least twenty, thirty or even forty songs for him. Except for those eliminated from the beginning, all other works may have to go through the above process.

  However, in the end, the album only selected ten songs as the final published work.

  After the initial production of the first stage, the next step is the second part of the producer's work, which is to help the singer find the emotional tone and polish the best recording state through continuous adjustment, thereby completing the recording.

  At this stage, in addition to professional producers and singers themselves, the role of a monitor is often required, of course, as well as recording engineers and professional recording studios.

  Moreover, it's also worth mentioning that a good recording engineer is not easy to cultivate.

  He must have extremely sensitive ears and a music-sensitive soul. A good recording engineer can always find the best and most moving part of the singer's voice through detailed adjustments, including microphone tuning and placement, etc., so that the final recorded version is full and rich in emotion.

  Then, after the recording stage is completed, the second part of the producer's work also ends, but next, there is a third part.

  That's post-production.

  No one's voice is perfect, not even Liu Mingliang, Zhen Zhen or Liao Liao. Even after repeated polishing and recording, the final version from the recording studio will still have some minor flaws.

  What to do? Then it can only be corrected and decorated through post-production. Even for some singers, the sound details presented in the recording studio version are helpless and can only be erased.

  And here, not only a large amount of professional equipment is needed, but also a large number of professional post-production personnel are required.

  At this stage, it can be said that the essential part of a song, or even an album, has finally been completed. However, for producers, their work still has a fourth part.

  That's the final part of the whole album, which may include choreography and MV shooting, but most importantly, it includes cover photography, as well as design and production of covers, songbooks and inner pages.

  At this stage, the producer himself or with the help of the company's resources, in short, he needs to contact a suitable photographer and high-level art designers, sometimes may also need illustrators.

  Then, finally, the production stage is completed, and after professional-level trial listening, in general, the producer can let go. The final polished album will be handed over to the company, on the one hand, sent to the factory for CD and cassette duplication, on the other hand, sent to the printing plant for cover and inner page printing, and then proceed with overall packaging. On another side, the promotion and distribution department will formulate a detailed promotion and distribution strategy, and then go public, putting the product on the market nationwide.

  It can be said that the level of a producer largely determines the standard and quality of an album, because in an album, a song, except for the part of singing, the singer has a relatively large proportion, other parts are almost all within the scope of the producer's work. You can imagine how high the requirements for the producer's musical foundation and comprehensive strength are.

  In the past year or so, Li Qian has participated in the production of two albums, including Wu Xing's "Sisters Stand Up" and Liao Liao's "Tao Sheng Yi Jiou", but in those two albums, his role was "supervisor", not producer. The producer of "Sisters Stand Up" is Li Jinlong, and the producer of "Tao Sheng Yi Jiou" is Zhao Meifeng.

  So in fact, Li Qian was only responsible for controlling the quality of an album on the music side, and all other trivial matters were completely handed over to the producer.

  And then, after the studio was established, it would take orders for album production and also produce albums for Liao Liao. Li Qian may very likely participate in the entire process of producing an album from start to finish, but he is still not too willing to take on the role of producer and instead prefers to focus more energy mainly on music.

  This is also the reason why he knew that it would cause unpleasantness on the side of Huage Records, but still nodded in agreement to let Li Jinlong join - he couldn't and wouldn't spend so much time dealing with these trivial matters, so he needed someone who was proficient in the business to take care of them.

  By this point, the entire process of creating an album has basically been dissected. At this time, not to mention Liao Liao and Huang Wenjuan who are already familiar with this process, even Qi Jie and Wang Jinglu have a completely enlightened expression.

  At this time, Li Qian said again: "For the time being, even if our studio is established, our business will mainly focus on this area, that is, production. Making albums for other record companies or singers doesn't need to be said, even making an album for Liao Liao, we would still have to finish the album and then choose another company to distribute it. Although I am also very reluctant, in fact, if we want to grow bigger and stronger, the two links of production and distribution must be present, but for us, it is really too difficult, even if we will definitely be restricted by others, we can only take it one step at a time."

  Of course, that's what he said, but in Li Qian's heart, it was a different idea.

  ***

  It's been a long time since I've been in a slump, and this month, ever since I got sick, I just can't seem to muster up the energy. But with the month coming to an end soon, I guess I really can't stay in this slump forever?

  Let's start from today, whether it's a recommendation ticket, a monthly ticket, or a reward, everyone can give me some encouragement and boost my morale. Tonight, I will write at least one more chapter!

  I must cheer up!