“How many songs should I send to an A&R guy or publishers, and in what format?”
Okay, this is hardly a “Tech Tip,” but it is a very valid question. Over the years, the answer to this question has changed. The nature of searching for bands or artists to sign has drastically evolved to fit the needs of the business. Certainly beyond the scope of today’s inSync is the actual art of demo preparation. However, the idea of selecting one song – your best song – and sending it in “Triple-Back” format on a convenient media format such as compact disc seems to be the current trend for initial contact. This will allow the listener to pop in your song while he drives, flies across the country, works in his office, etc. and hear it over and over without having to rewind or skip around to hear it again and again. If you want to send more than one song always put the best one first. If that sparks enough interest to cause the listener to go deeper into the disc then hopefully none of the other songs will undo the favorable impression, which is one good reason to only put the one song on there. If a busy listener doesn’t get through the first song there’s virtually no chance of any subsequent ones being played anyway.
As for the format: CD is the only choice these days. If you submit on any other medium the chances of your material being heard diminish significantly.