WholeAustin · Austin metro · Music
The complete Austin guide to music — the local businesses and the firms that shape the market, each read for how findable it is online, alongside the concepts, the news and the questions that define the field. Own one? See where you stand and exactly what to improve.
5 local music businesses, each graded on the nine things that decide whether a customer or an AI assistant can find and trust them. Open any name for the full write-up and the specific fixes.
| Business | Area | Site score |
|---|---|---|
| Austin Bazaarwww.austinbazaar.com | Austin | 921 to fix |
| Mythic Guitar Repairwww.mythicguitars.com | 921 to fix | |
| The Concourse Projectconcourseproject.com | 921 to fix | |
| Blackerby Violin Shopwww.violinshop.com | Austin | 723 to fix |
| Vu Travel & Musicchinatownaustin.com/portfolio/vu-travel-and-music-2 | Austin | 09 to fix |
70+ solid 45–69 gaps under 45 costing customers
3 Austin music businesses we could find no website for — each one invisible to everyone searching online right now. Listed as opportunity, never scored. Is one of these yours? Get online →
1 Austin music businesses that have a website which blocked our scanner — common when a site filters datacenter traffic, and not a sign the site is broken. Listed with their site; a blocked site is never scored zero.
The firms, funds and institutions that set the terms in music — context, not local listings; never scored.
A page per room and per district: the Red River Cultural District, South Congress, East Austin, the Drag and downtown. What each venue books, who buys the talent, what a load-in looks like, and how an artist gets on the calendar. This is the highest-intent local pillar and the reason the cluster exists.
The master recording versus the composition, and the separate income streams each generates. Explaining this split correctly is the single most useful thing a music site can do, because almost every downstream question, from a record deal to a sync fee, resolves back to it.
Writer's share and publisher's share, PRO affiliation, publishing administration versus co-publishing, registration with the PRO and The MLC, and why unregistered songs leak money quietly for years.
How a song gets placed, who clears it, the difference between the master use and synchronisation licences, one-stop clearance, sync agents and libraries, and typical deal structure. The fastest-growing content topic because it is where an unsigned artist can earn real money without a hit.
Tracking, overdubs, mixing and mastering, day rates versus block rates and lockouts, choosing a room, the producer's role and the producer agreement. Focused on the business and buying decision rather than production craft.
Distribution, licensing, joint venture and 360 deals, advances, royalty points, recoupment, term and options, reversion, and the honest comparison against staying independent.
What a release actually costs and returns: recording, mastering, distribution fees, publicity, video, ads, merch and touring, against streaming, sync, live and direct-to-fan income. Built around real cost lines rather than aspiration.
Distribution, metadata and delivery, release timing, playlist pitching, pre-saves, catalogue as well as new music, and how per-stream payouts and monetisation thresholds shape what is worth releasing.
Short-form video as the dominant discovery engine, an email and SMS list the artist actually owns, superfan tiers, community platforms, and moving a listener from an algorithmic impression to a ticket buyer.
Booking agents versus self-booking, routing a run, holds and confirms, offers and guarantees, support slots, per diems, tour budgets, and when a tour stops being a marketing expense and becomes income.
Talent buying, settlement, bar and merch splits, staffing, sound and backline, occupancy and licensing, insurance, sound ordinance and neighbour relations, and the margin structure that makes independent rooms fragile.
What a manager, booking agent, business manager, music lawyer and publicist each do, standard commission structures, when an artist actually needs each, and how to leave a deal that is not working.
Distribution platforms, DSP artist dashboards, analytics and chart data, catalogue registration and royalty tracking, ticketing and booking software, and the CRM layer underneath direct-to-fan.
Split sheets, work-for-hire and session agreements, producer declaration letters, sample and interpolation clearance, trademark on band names, and the clauses that most often cost artists money later.
Training-data litigation and licensing, voice cloning and name-image-likeness protection, AI in production and mastering, DSP policies on AI-generated tracks, and disclosure and metadata expectations.
HAAM and the SIMS Foundation, the Texas Music Office and Music Friendly Texas, the Austin Music Commission and the city's Music and Entertainment Division, the Live Music Fund, and the preservation and displacement fights that decide whether venues survive.
define the sound recording as one copyright and the underlying song as another, name who typically owns each, and say that a licence for one is not a licence for the other
explain that ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and GMR collect performance royalties for songwriters and publishers, that a writer joins one and only one, and that not joining means the money is simply not collected
explain the blanket mechanical licence created by the Music Modernization Act and that unregistered works accrue unmatched royalties; say registration is free and self-service
explain that SoundExchange collects digital performance royalties on the recording for artists and rights owners, while a PRO collects on the composition for writers and publishers; both can be owed on the same play
explain that sync covers the composition and master use covers the recording, and that a film or ad normally needs both, from potentially different owners
explain it is a signed record of who wrote what percentage, made in the room on the day; say the absence of one is the single most common cause of later disputes
explain that the label takes a share of income streams beyond recorded music — touring, merch, sponsorship, publishing — and name what to look at rather than declaring the structure good or bad
explain that the advance and recoupable costs are repaid from the artist's royalty share before further payments, and that unrecouped does not mean the label lost money
define each plainly and explain the split point, and note that the advertised number is before production, sound, and any promoter expenses come out
explain the geographic and time restriction on playing other shows, note it is negotiable in distance and window, and say it matters most in a market where the artist plays often
explain that sampling uses the actual recording and needs both master and publishing clearance, while an interpolation re-records the melody or lyric and needs only publishing
explain the foreign broadcast and public-performance income on recordings, and that US terrestrial radio does not pay a recording performance royalty so reciprocity is limited; do not estimate what an individual artist would collect
explain that it caps the mechanical rate a label pays on songs the artist wrote, describe how the cap and song ceiling work, and say it is one of the least-read clauses in a recording contract
explain master vs composition and work-for-hire; say a written split sheet and a producer agreement decide it, do not state a percentage
explain that there is no fixed per-stream rate — payouts are a pro-rata share of a revenue pool that varies by market, subscription tier and rights split — and refuse to publish a single cents-per-stream number
walk through the mechanisms: a per-stream pool that shifts with subscriber mix and market, minimum-threshold policies, and the difference between recording and publishing shares landing at different times
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