Earning Your First Income As A Music Producer: Wavetick’s Founder Sharooz Raoofi Talks Tips, Tricks, and Streaming Alternatives

Tons of artists and producers go their entire careers chasing fruitless vanity metrics, and I don’t blame them. It’s easy to see A-tier artists rack up tens of millions of streams, garner hundreds of thousands of social media followers, and instantly equate that to being the golden ticket to life as a full-time artist. And while there’s some merit to that, albeit shamefully and unrealistically small, the real money is made, mortgages paid for, and comfortable lifestyles achieved through far less glamourous revenue streams that most artists focused on the end-game only ignore entirely. 

Sharooz Raoofi is an industry veteran who has worked in almost every facet of the industry, from executing some of the bigger behind-the-scenes moves at Splice to working directly with major labels. He’s seen how many small bits of revenue default to the top 1% simply because the smaller artists they should have gone to didn’t know they had a slice of the pie in the first place. 

That’s why he started Wavetick, a platform where artists of every level and genre can monetize every step of their creative process, from selling sample packs, presets, production templates, and so much more. It doesn’t sound as glamorous as Drake-level streams, right? But it’s 10x more exciting if only because anyone (that means you!) can start making cash for the creative work you’re already doing.

In this exclusive interview, Raoofi talks about all the different ways artists can make their first initial revenue streams, the financial mistakes all too many artists make, and the biggest regrets larger artists always look back on. 

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Why is the common assumption that getting onto DPSs is the first and easiest way to get payouts as an up-and-coming artist?

The cornerstone of success as a recording artist is synonymously associated with Spotify stats. Spotify ’numbers’ get you booked as an artist, get you noticed, get you awards, and get you into charts. Their playlists are the radio of our generation, and the more inflated play stats are, the easier it is, in theory, to make it onto those playlists. 

Spotify is the low-hanging fruit of DSPs – they’re an easy-fit user experience for the listener, and their convenience has commoditized recorded music to no longer be the main product in itself but a byproduct – a service that runs alongside the multiple other apps and distractions you can have on your phone, and with a business model that puts the artist very near the bottom of the food chain.

Still, a lot of people conflate success in DSPs with financial rewards. This is incredibly inaccurate. The insinuation that Spotify numbers translate into a robust income is publicly becoming debunked and has been for a while now. We need to look further into whether artists have a realistic chance of making their creative work a career option in the coming years.

When focusing so much on streams, what other avenues of income are smaller artists or producers leaving on the table?

A lot – music publishing, sound packs, beat licensing, production music, sound design – there are an entire gamut of ’services’ producers and musicians should pay attention to. 

For 90% of artists, it’s impossible to live off DSPs and live shows alone. With marketplaces like Wavetick we are showing that there is a substantial route to potentially significant income as a creator – not only as a framework for administering rights so creators can confidently license their wares to users of music – but also a business model that pays a generous portion of revenue (87.5% of license income) direct to the creator, instantly, with no middlemen skimming off the top. We make it easy, and nobody loses access to their rights – core rights are always retained by the creator on Wavetick.I don’t feel that music should be created by recording artists purely to be released on a DSP. 

There is beauty, substance and a resilient career to be made from licensing music – and we want to make that process as frictionless as possible.

What opportunities did most pro producers miss when they were younger when they came up as artists or producers? What regrets do they usually have

Publishing. 

Anything and everything to do with it. I speak to so many new artists nowadays – and – startlingly a large number of established artists who don’t even know how publishing copyrights work and how important it is to retain and covet your songs – they’ll go into a publishing deal without even knowing the significance of what they’re doing or what they’ve signed away.

PROs pay billions of dollars yearly on broadcast revenue – it’s hugely important to log, track, and claim usages and collect any revenue due. PROs also retain millions of dollars of unclaimed income, usually distributed to the 1% of top-tier artists by pure guesswork – and in most cases, their logging and tracking of revenue are archaic or vastly outdated. The industry needs to wise up, and young producers must be educated better about their core values.

Where can new artists and producers look for creative ways to earn income from their craft? What are your three most creative means or outlets, and why?

I like Sound Better – to sell your services worldwide is a neat way to monetize studio time while honing your core skills – I’ve used it multiple times – it’s slick, dependable, and a great means of revenue – it’s a dirty little secret for a lot of very established artists I know to generate revenue. I’m unsure why it’s considered a secret – it’s great!

Bandcamp deserves an honorable mention – it’s much more than a record store, and it’s inspiring to see it being used to sell other creator wares – the direct to fan access is brilliant – the curated merchandising approach is refreshing when compared with DSP playlists, and the usual crap that goes with it. It’s a real crate diggers experience. It’s also mega easy to get on board directly – you don’t need an aggregator.

And off course Wavetick ha – we’ve taken the beat store concept and added a few unique flourishes – instant onboarding, free to use, sell limited edition or one-off works (imagine selling one version of a beat or pack to just one customer!), clearly differentiating between tracks – which carry future publishing revenue, and sound packs – which don’t.. and our purchase tier colors which make it super easy for buyers to know which rights they are granted with their purchase.

How soon in an artists’ career should they consider monetizing their craft or skillset?

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer to this. Some folks are happy with just the solitary act of creating – in the act – be it for themselves or their close circle. They don’t necessarily seek to get paid off of what they do. 

Monetization of one’s skill set is a pipe dream for most artists now, sadly. So there’s not really a how soon – it’s as and when you can make it work out!

Finally, why is right now the best time in history to be a musician or producer?

The sheer vastness of available opportunities right now is unparalleled – and it’s so easy to get onboard or get heard. Of course, the audience is greater, too. 

When I first started out in the early 2000s at major labels, you had to have a manager make an appointment with an A&R and do a real-time listening session or employ an expensive radio plugger to try and get your material heard by a small handful of gatekeepers on national radio – very little of that is essential now.Let’s not even talk about how many thousands of dollars needed to be spent on a pro recording setup – hardware samplers, mixers, outboard FX – you’d have to sell a kidney just to do what anyone can now do on their phone. 

The obstacles we’ve overcome in the last decade are phenomenal. My job is to ensure the next generation of creators will be incentivized and motivated to continue doing this and evolving in their journey – so to provide the tools, and marketplace for this is the most important thing for me