FAQ

ZOT Zin Production will produce and record your song, or co-write an all original song around your song idea, lyric, poem or a capella vocals.

Hire a songwriter, producer, musician or vocalist from our website, upload your song materials, and receive your finished recording. Our turnaround time is typically 3 weeks or less.

You can find a list of all services we offer here: ZOT ZIN Production Services

During the purchasing process, you will be asked to provide info about the song, style, specific instrumentation, if any, etc. After receiving your order and your files, we will get back to you if we have any more questions.

We then assemble the team based on the services you purchased and start the writing or recording process. You can come in to record your parts at the ZOT Zin Production studio, or you can hire one of our musicians.

You will receive your finished song in 3 weeks or less.

As of June 2013, we have co-written, produced and recorded over 650 songs for over 400 different artists.

You can hear samples here: ZOT Zin Production Samples

Depending on the services ordered, we usually finish a song within 2-3 weeks.

We can accommodate you and expedite the project upon special request. Please let us know and we'll see what we can do. We've had songwriting clients who were on a deadline, and who needed us to write a song to their lyrics the same day, and were able to deliver.

Our services and specialty are more geared towards:

1. Solo artists and songwriters who are looking to record a great sounding demo.
2. People who would like to have music written and/or recorded to their lyrics or poems.
3. Musicians who are stuck with a song idea they would like us to help them develop into a full song.
4. Musicians or vocalists who have recordings they would like to improve upon, or add extra instruments or vocals to.

We do have the space and facilities though to also record full bands. Give us a call at 310-902-0993 to discuss this.

You can upload your song materials here: Upload Song Materials

You can also mail us at our studio address:

ZOT Zin Production
3163 Weldon Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90065

Upload your lyrics and chord charts as .TXT, .RTF, or .DOC, .DOCX, your recording as .WAV, .AIFF, or .mp3 and your sheet music as a .jpg or .pdf.
If you need us to work on your artwork: upload versions of your artwork as GIF, PNG, DOCX, .psd, .ai, or .eps

No! We only write, cowrite, produce and record your songs, and charge a flat fee for providing that service. We do not buy lyrics, and we do not buy songs.

The easiest and quickest way to get started, is to visit our order page: Online Order, where you can select your service, tell us about your song, style, etc, upload your files and purchase your service.

Contact us anytime if you have any questions or if we can be of any assistance.

The cost depends on what you have in mind recording wise. Would just like a vocal and guitar accompaniment, or would you like a small band, full band, or a bigger production, etc.

Do you already have all the chords to your melody written out?
If not, then you would want to hire one of our songwriters to write all the music (the chords, intros, the song form/structure, etc.).
If you want a full band recording, then the songwriter would also write the arrangements, riffs, parts, bass lines, etc… ) to your melody and lyrics.
All this is included when you hire a songwriter. The songwriter builds and develops the music and the song around your lyric and melody.

Then the song needs to be produced and recorded. We offer 3 recording packages that takes care of that. The package includes the producer and the cost of the musicians.
You can also hire extra musicians independently of or in addition to a package.

If you would like one of our vocalists to sing your melody, then you would also need to hire one of our session vocalists.
If you would like to sing the song yourself, you can do so at a studio of your choice when you get the fully produced session files of your song recording, or you can always come in in the studio here to lay down your vocals.

You can find all pricing info for all services here Pricing

You can do so on the order page here: Online Order

In the extremely rare case that you request a refund before we started production, you will get a full refund, no questions asked.

If you aren't pleased with our work on a song, we will do all we can to fix the problem and accommodate you at no extra cost. If, somehow, we are unable to meet your request or if you are still unhappy after corrections and attempts were made to resolve the issue, we are happy to refund you your full payment minus a $200 non-refundable deposit or 25% of the amount paid, whichever is less.

Meaning: if you purchased the $150 Basic Production package, and you somehow were dissatisfied, we will refund you $150 minus 25% of 150.

The reason why it is extremely rare that one of our clients is unhappy, is that we constantly communicate with you along every step of the recording process to make sure we stay on track with your vision.

Yes, you can. We are flexible and can figure out a payment plan with you. Keep in mind that we will start production on your song no sooner than when full payment has been received.

Contact us anytime if you would like to talk about this.

No. Your song always stays your song. You hire a musician, producer, songwriter, or vocalist as a "Work for Hire" agreement , which means that the person you hire gets paid a one-time flat fee for the work done, with no additional charges. All the music written for you by any member of the ZOT Zin Production staff then becomes yours. We will provide you with a standard "Work for Hire" agreement that we sign off on to help you protect your rights to the music we have written or recorded for you.

You do, however, also have the option of a co-publishing deal, which is discussed in one of the next questions.

Technically speaking, any song you write is automatically protected by copyright as soon as it is created in a tangible form, such as a recording or sheet music.

However, while it's not necessary to do anything to protect your copyright, you do have a better chance of proving your case if ever your copyright is infringed upon, when your work is registered with the copyright office. You can register the copyright to your song here: US Copyright Office

You can't go wrong registering your song's copyright, just to be on the safe side.

If you choose to co-publish, you split your copyright 50/50 with ZOT Zin Publishing. In return for giving up 50% of your copyright, we help you market and distribute your song.

A "Work for Hire" agreement is a very common, standard contract in the music business. In a "Work for Hire" arrangement, you hire someone to write music for you, you pay a one-time flat fee for the work, and you end up owning all of the music. Meaning that even though we write the music you hired us to write, the music belongs to you, and we can't claim any ownership.

In a "Work For Hire" agreement, you retain 100% of your copyright. In a co-publishing agreement, you share the copyright with us 50/50, and in return we help you market your music, to get your music heard by more people.

Yes, if you choose to co-publish, we will help you market your music in exchange for a 50/50 split of the copyright.

If you choose the "Work for Hire" option, marketing is not included.

Yes, definitely. Many of our recording clients don't play any instruments, but send us lyrics to write music to. Some of our clients send us recordings of melody lines they've sung into their phones without accompaniment.

Check out some quick guidelines on lyric writing here: ZOT Zin Production Song Lyric Basics

We can literally write music to anything you give us. However: your song's structure and form, from a songwriting perspective, will be more accessible and easier to follow if your lyrics follow the usual lyric writing guidelines.

Absolutely! Every song we write is entirely uniquely 100% original. We write music to your specific guidelines, taste, style and tempo that musically matches your lyrics and story.

We use a number of different platforms, depending on the project. We use Pro Tools HD2, Logic, Propellerhead Reason, BFD, etc.

We also cooperate with different studios and engineers who work from their studios.

Check here for a summary of some of our gear we use at the ZOT Zin Production studio.
ZOT Zin Production Gear

You will get an instrumental version of your song that you can add your own vocals to. To get the best possible quality we would suggest you record your vocals in a professional studio. You can visit us at our studio to record your vocals using our top-of-the-line Neumann U87 mic.

Yes. When you place your order, you can choose instruments from the ZOT Zin Production List of Instruments.

You can also request any special instrument not on the list. We will usually be able to accommodate you, as we have a vast network of musicians we work with beyond our core studio team.

Yes. If you prefer a particular staff singer to sing on your song, simply enter their name when you place your order. You can listen to our staff vocalists here: Meet the ZOT Zin Production Vocalists

You basically get the fully-produced recording of the part that the hired musician performed for you during the session.

Depending on the services you ordered, this could be a single-instrument track (if, for example, you need one trumpet solo for a song you already produced in your home studio), or a fully-produced song, if you ordered one of our production packages.

Once your song is finished, you will be notified as to where you can download the song as an MP3 or WAV file. If you would like us to send you a CD, you can order that from the order page.