Feb072009
I’ve been doing the whole DJ thing for well over 10 years now and I’ve played across a variety of venues for many different promoters - some of who I know and some who I have never met before. But one thing I have come to learn over the years is to always protect yourself with a contract no matter how well you know the promoter.
Don’t be scared by thinking all this legal stuff is beyond you becasue all a contract does is promise to the promoter that you will turn up on time and it promises you the DJ that you will get paid your agreed fee. It’s pretty much a guarantee betwen DJ and promoter that helps to protect both parties involved.
Among other things a contract will do the following things:
- Makes you look more professional
- Ensures you get paid
- Establishes some ground rules in case things go wrong
- Re-assures the promoter
Contracts are important because sometimes you might fall ill, you might have to book travel expenses in advance, the promoter is slow at paying you, even the event itself can get cancelled at short notice. I myself have even turned up to play a venue only to find that the doors were closed and the event was cancelled. I had not been notified of this and I was extremely pissed off. Unfortunately, I had no contract in place to protect me and to this day I am still owed money. I got proper stiched up. The booking was for a friend of a friend and ever since I have had to sadly stop working with them on principle. This is one of the main reasons why it is so important to get a contract established and put in place from the start - no matter how well you know the promoter, even if the booking is for your best friend.
It’s not difficult to set up a DJ contract. In fact, below you will find a link to the very same contract template that I use to send out to each and every promoter. Simply download it, change the details to be your own and get the promoter to sign the contract before the event takes place.
It’s usually a good idea to get the signed copy of the contract in your hand as early as possible, but as a rule I now don’t even unpack my gear unless the signed contract is in my hand. I played a boat party a few years back and was stood at the dock where I got the contract signed before I would even step on the boat.
For further help with protecting yourself, you should get yourself signed up to the Musician’s Union if you live in the UK. It will cost you about £10 per month but it is useful for two main reasons.
Firstly, you will get Limited Liability Insurance included as part of your subscription. This is important in case you do something stupid like drop a speaker on someone, or blow up all the venues amps. Terms and conditions apply, but the short of it is that Limited Liability Insurance will pay out for you if anything serious happens. Imagine if that dropped speaker broke someones leg and they sued you for medical expenses. Unlikely I know, but how many of us are paying £10 a week for car insurance right now? Limited Liability Insurance has become pretty much a standard for professional working DJs, again it offers re-assurance to the promoter that you are serious about your profession, plus if you purchase Limited Liability Insurance elsewhere, this can cost from £500 upwards. So from joining the Musicians Union you get it a bit cheaper too.
Secondly, if the promoter that booked you fails to pay up in time, you can report them to the Musicians Union who will then help you to chase up your outstanding invoice. Sending your debtor a letter from an official organisation definitely has a lot more gusto behind it.
Download my DJ contract (PDF 62Kb), change the details to be your own and start using it today. I promise you now, there will be at least one time in the future where you will be glad of it.
Jan102009
Something I get asked a lot is “How do I get my podcast on iTunes?”. There is no magical formula, its not a long and complicated process and best of all it’s free.
Be warned, it’s not something that everyone will be able to do by hand as it involves a bit of computer savvy. But I will do my best to break it down for you step by step. At the end of this tutorial you will find an example for you to copy plus links to other web sites that go into a bit more detail than I will be going into here.
For this tutorial I am going to assume you have the following things:
- Some web space
- An FTP programme
- Wordpad, Notepad or equivelant for writing code
- A finished podcast episode in mp3 format already uploaded to your web space
- An iTunes account
- A bit of knowledge about HTML tags
- A graphic image for your podcast
Thats really all you need. Lets dig in!
XML WTF?
iTunes uses a piece of code called XML to construct your podcast page in iTunes. The XML file contains all of the relevant information about your podcast such as episodes, file paths, length, file size and so on. The way it works is that you upload your XML file to your web site, tell iTunes where to find the XML file, iTunes will then suck out all of the information it needs to create your podcast page within its podcast section.
You need to provide this XML code to iTunes yourself, but don’t panic as I am going to give you some example code, and break it down with you line by line.
Open up your favourite text editor (in this example I am using Notepad) and save it as any name you choose but make sure you do not use spaces (hyphens are ok) and give it an “.xml” file extenstion. E.g “itunes.xml”
Set Up yout XML Document
Start off by telling iTunes that this is an XML document:
<?xml version="1.0” encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd” version="2.0">
If you want to find out more about XML you can do so here but a full explanation is not really needed right now.
<channel>
If you are fammiliar with HTML you will know about opening and closing tags. A tag of <channel> is required to encompass all of your data so open up the channel tag like this:
<channel>
OK, boring stuff out of the way, this is where you get to add your own content in order to tell iTunes what your podcast is all about.
<title>
Open and close a <title> tag, and put the title of your podcast within like this:
<title>My Podcast</title>
Obviously, don’t call yours My Podcast, this is just an example. Replace the text with the name of your own podcast. For all the other examples below you should replace the content with your own information. To help out, for all of the bits you need to modify I have highlighted as yellow.
This title is the first thing at the top of your podcast page in iTunes, so make it good, concise and relevant.
<link>
Next we need to add in the code that tells iTunes the web site where your podcast is hosted, usually your home page. This will be linked to from your iTunes podcast page.
<link>http://www.paulvelocity.co.uk</link>
<language>
Next we have to specify the language of the podcast. In my case, it is English and is written like this:
<language>en-us</language>
If your podcast is not in this language, you can look at other language tags in HTML and XML.
<copyright>
You should copyright your iTunes podcast with your name and year
<copyright>Copyright Paul Velocity 2009</copyright>
<itunes:subtitle>
Next, you should give your podcast a subtitle. Think of it like a strapline, or a description of your podcast in less than 10 words
<itunes:subtitle>Funky Chunky Sexy Disco House Music In The Mix</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:author>
Every podcast is written by someone, so put your name in as the author, or you could add a few names if it is a collaboration.
<itunes:author>Paul Velocity</itunes:author>
<itunes:summary>
Use the Summary feature within iTunes to give a more expanded description of your podcast. This will be shown on your iTunes podcast page so choose your words carefully.
<itunes:summary>Monthly funky house mix alternating with DJ and music industry interviews</itunes:summary>
<description>
When people search iTunes for podcasts and your podcast shows up in the search results, you get a chance to give extended detail about your podcast and what listeners can expect to hear from it. Avoid waffle, be honest, descriptive and keep it to the point.
<description>The first week of each month contains an upfront funky house mix from myself, playing a premuim selection of funky vocal house with a tinge of dancefloor dirt. Scattered in between these podcasts, you can find myself shoving a microphone in the face of various DJs, promoters and producers in order to get the lowdown on what is happening on the dance music scene right now. If you like what you hear, please write a favourable review. Much love - Paul</description>
<itunes:owner>
You need to display your name for the podcast. This can either be your real name, or your stage name. Within the <itunes:owner> tag you must supply your email address too. An example is shown below:
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Paul Velocity</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>you@example.com</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<img/>
Now you must tell itunes where to find your funky new artwork that you have created for your podcast. It is recommended that you create an image exactly 600px by 600px and save it as a jpg or png. You must specify the absolute path to your image so make sure you include the http:// part. To ensure you have the correct file path, it is a good idea to bring up the image in a new browser window and copy the URL from the address bar.
<itunes:image href="http://paulvelocity.co.uk/i/itunes_logo.jpg” />
<itunes:category/>
Categorise your podcast. There are specific values you must use for this - you can not just type in anything you like. Your category can be any category shown under the “Categories” heading on the iTunes podcast home page. Most likely you are creating a music podcast and so your category will be “Music”. I’m not sure if this is case sensitive or not so I have left in the capital “M”.
<itunes:category text="Music“/>
<item>
Each episode you create for your podcast requires it to be encompassed by an <item> tag. This lets iTunes know you are defining the start of an individual episode of your podcast. So open up the tag:
<item>
<title>
Give your episode a title in the same way as you titled your podcast.
<title>Funky House Mix January 2009</title>
<itunes:author>
Each episode has the ability to have individual authors and subtitles. Authors might also be other contributers to the podcast. The subtitle is the bit of text that shows up next to each episode within your podcast listing.
<itunes:author>Funky House DJ Paul Velocity</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>New Year Grooves</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>
The <itunes:summary> tag is the extended description for your individual episode. It displays when the 
button is clicked in your episode listing. You should write a good description about the episode you have created. In my case, it is simply the track listing of the podcast. Remember to close the <itunes:summary> tag at the end of the description.
<itunes:summary>
01. A Skillz feat Krafty Kuts - Happiness
02. Full Intention Presents Shena - I’ll Be Waiting (Shave Remix)
03. Rockefeller - Do It 2 Nite (Ian carey Remix)
04. Freemasons - If (Freemasons 2009 Re Rub)
05. Timmy Vegas And Bad Lay Dee - Another Dimension (Triple D Club Mix)
06. Sam Project - Why (Original Club Mix)
07. Kid Massive - Get Busy (Soul Avengerz Mayhem Mix)
08. Lissat + Voltaxx - Release Yourself (Vocal Club Mix)
09. Fucka - Digital Union
10. Golden Girls - Kinetic (Atfc Remix)
11. Bodyrox + Luciana ft. Nick Clow - Brave New World (Original Mix)
12. Jay Stewart - The Shuffle (Original Mix)
</itunes:summary>
<enclosure/>
The enclosure tag contains three elements. The location of the podcast episode, the file size (in bytes) and the file type. The URL attribute should be an absolute path from http:// to your mp3 podcast.
To obtain the length of the file in bytes, all I do is right-click the file on my PC, and click “Properties”. You will see the Size shown in brackets in bytes. It will look something like this: (92,790,784 bytes). Use this number without the commas as the length value in your <enclosure/>.
Finally, you need to describe the file type which in this case is “audio/mpeg”. If you only ever do audio podcasting, then this value will never change.
If you put it all together the <enclosure/> tag will look something like this:
<enclosure url="http://paulvelocity.co.uk/mp3/mix/paul_velocity_mix_jan_09.mp3” length=”92790784” type=”audio/mpeg“/>
<guid>
<guid> tags are a compulsory part of the XML file and are simply a full path to your podcast episode. You can simply copy the URL value from the <enclosure/> tag above.
<guid>http://paulvelocity.co.uk/mp3/mix/paul_velocity_mix_jan_09.mp3</guid>
<pubDate>
Nearly there! Every podcast episode needs to have a publish date. This is the date and time of when the episode was created or uploaded. It is used to list your podcast episodes in chronological order within iTunes. <pubDate> follows a strict date format. It is a three letter day of the week, followed by a comma “,” then a two-digit date and a three-letter month. The time is given using the 24 hour clock in the format of HH:MM:SS. Last thing is your local time zone. As you can see, mine is GMT.
<pubDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:34:12 GMT</pubDate>
<itunes:duration>
In hours, minutes and seconds, you should tell iTunes how long your podcast is. Just like the time format above, this should be given as HH:MM:SS.
<itunes:duration>1:04:26</itunes:duration>
<itunes:keywords>
Keywords associate your podcast with words that people might search for when looking for podcasts within iTunes. The keywords tag should contain a list of about twelve comma separated words that describe what your podcast is about. For best results, try to think of what words others might search for in order to find your podcast and never use words that are not relevant to your content.
<itunes:keywords>funky, house, mix</itunes:keywords>
<itunes:explicit>
S**t, f**k and c**t are words that are frowned upon in iTunes. iTunes is a family orientated place where children and easily-offened pensioners tend to visit. If your podcast contains profanity then you should label it as having “explicit content”. I like to mark my podcasts in this way even if there is only one instance of an offensive word in the entire episode. The value that the <itunes:explicit> tag takes is either a “yes” or a “no”. There are no inbetweens. If you are unsure if something could be deemed to be offensive or not, then it is best to mark it as “yes” otherwise your episode could be remove and possibly your entire podcast taken down.
<itunes:explicit>yes</itunes:explicit>
</item>
Remember that <item> tag we opened up at the beginning? Now we hve to close it here to mark the end of the episode data.
</item>
If you want to add more episodes to your podcast, simply repeat the steps between the <item> and </item> tags to add as many episodes as you like to your podcast. You only ever have one XML file for your entire podcast and the information for each episode is contained within their own <item> tags.
</channel> </rss>
Just like marking the end of an episode, we have to mark the end of your podcast too. This is done by closing the <channel> tag. We also close the XML file here too on the line below.
</channel>
</rss>
Putting It All Together
Whack it all together and you should have a file that looks something like this:
<?xml version="1.0” encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd” version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>My Podcast</title>
<link>http://www.paulvelocity.co.uk</link>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>Copyright Paul Velocity 2009</copyright>
<itunes:subtitle>Paul Velocity In The Mix</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:author>Paul Velocity</itunes:author>
<itunes:summary>Monthly funky house mix alternating with DJ and music industry interviews</itunes:summary>
<description>The first week of each month contains an upfront funky house mix from myself, playing a premuim selection of funky vocal house with a tinge of dancefloor dirt. Scattered in between these podcasts, you can find myself shoving a microphone in the face of various DJs, promoters and producers in order to get the lowdown on what is happening on the dance music scene right now. If you like what you hear, please write a favourable review. Much love - Paul</description>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Paul Velocity</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>you@example.com</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:image href="http://paulvelocity.co.uk/i/itunes_logo.jpg” />
<itunes:category text="Music"/>
<item>
<title>Funky House Mix January 2009</title>
<itunes:author>Funky House DJ Paul Velocity</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>New Year Grooves</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>
01. A Skillz feat Krafty Kuts - Happiness
02. Full Intention Presents Shena - I’ll Be Waiting (Shave Remix)
03. Rockefeller - Do It 2 Nite (Ian carey Remix)
04. Freemasons - If (Freemasons 2009 Re Rub)
05. Timmy Vegas And Bad Lay Dee - Another Dimension (Triple D Club Mix)
06. Sam Project - Why (Original Club Mix)
07. Kid Massive - Get Busy (Soul Avengerz Mayhem Mix)
08. Lissat + Voltaxx - Release Yourself (Vocal Club Mix)
09. Fucka - Digital Union
10. Golden Girls - Kinetic (Atfc Remix)
11. Bodyrox + Luciana ft. Nick Clow - Brave New World (Original Mix)
12. Jay Stewart - The Shuffle (Original Mix)
</itunes:summary>
<enclosure url="http://paulvelocity.co.uk/mp3/mix/paul_velocity_mix_jan_09.mp3” length="92790784” type="audio/mpeg"/>
<guid>http://paulvelocity.co.uk/mp3/mix/paul_velocity_mix_jan_09.mp3</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:34:12 GMT</pubDate>
<itunes:duration>1:04:26</itunes:duration>
<itunes:keywords>funky, house, mix</itunes:keywords>
<itunes:explicit>yes</itunes:explicit>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
Now what?
Upload this file to your server. You might put it at www.example.com/itunes/itunes.xml
Now get iTunes open and find the Podcasts link.
Usually at the bottom right of the next page under the “For Podcasters” heading will be a link that says “Submit a Podcast”. Click it.
In the box provided, enter in your podcast feed url from above e.g www.example.com/itunes/itunes.xml and click submit.
Thats it! Job done. iTunes will give you firther instructions after this screen, but all of the hard work is now done. If you want to add more episodes to your mix feed, simply create another <item> below your first <item> for as many episodes as you like and replace your existing xml document on your server with the new one. There is no need to resubmit the feed to iTunes as it will re-visit your feed from time to time to check for new episodes and update itself automatically.
There is quite a lot of deeper detail missing from this tutorial, but if you follow the instructions above it really is a good crash-course on getting your music into itunes in a very painless and easy way.
For more detail on the iTunes podcast xml feed and the methods used, it is worth checking out some of the following links which will go into much more detail and give fuller explanations on each subject.
