A+ Audio

The band members, having been given a reality check, were now well-behaved, practicing at Joe Music every day and going nowhere else.

Half a month later, Song Ya propped his legs up on the mixing console, munching on a slice of watermelon while keeping an eye on the rehearsal. He couldn't get the white guys to bring him any, so he'd just buy it himself—it was actually quite expensive.

He had been back for half a month, and he had never felt the South Side of Chicago to be so intimate before. Even though the news reported shootings much more frequently than usual, staying here was still more comfortable than staying in New York. In New York, he had encountered the first instance of discrimination since his transmigration; he had to be extremely careful with every word and action. The feeling could be summed up in two words: mentally exhausting! And honestly, the two high-crime districts in New York weren't much better than this place.

Aside from supervising rehearsals, he and Eric had learned just about enough about mixing techniques. Over these past few days, he had also exchanged quite a bit of knowledge about synthesizers with Delay. For his two "apocalyptic" songs, there was always a gap in quality between the finished product and the original backing tracks. He concluded that the problem lay in audio synthesis; the synthesizers of the current era lacked many of the synthesized sounds found in the original tracks, and Delay was helping him set out to solve this issue.

"F-word~ F-word~"

"Ahem."

Hayden walked in, clearing his throat at the door. "I've introduced Allie to an agent. He'll arrange everything, and you two won't have any contact in the future."

Allie... Song Ya had already called her from New York to break up with her. After she had pestered him for a while by constantly calling his pager, she finally accepted reality. She had relied on the few seconds of close-up footage she got in the Thrift Shop music video, and as the video became a huge hit, a talent scout had actually gone to her school to look for her. She had begged Song Ya again, and Song Ya could only leave the matter for Hayden to handle properly.

"Thanks." He had already done more than enough; Song Ya felt no guilt.

"Thrift Shop is number eleven on the Billboard weekly chart for the first week, seventh for the second, and it dipped a bit to ninth for the third..."

Hayden was here for business. "If nothing goes wrong, the single sales will start to slowly decline as well. SBK has restocked once. According to their calculations, actual sales have already surpassed one million copies, though the specific figures haven't been released yet."

"It seems our decision to choose SBK was the right one." Song Ya had been looking forward to this portion of his income for a long time.

"Yeah." Hayden was also very excited. With Song Ya's rise, his own income and status at William Morris were also soaring. "Besides this income, the payments from BMI will also be deposited regularly from now on. Plus, with your second song about to be released, you need to be careful with your finances. You need to find an accountant to help you as soon as possible."

For all radio stations, shopping malls, bars, restaurants, and other venues that operated for profit, BMI would periodically track the playback of songs by its members and charge fees based on the number of plays. The fee per play was very, very low, but it added up to a considerable amount over time. As long as he held the copyright, this money would keep coming in. Furthermore, if the songs were used in places like movie soundtracks, he could negotiate a hefty licensing fee, from which Song Ya would also receive a cut.

"An accountant?" Song Ya rubbed his chin.

"We at William Morris have cooperative relationships with many reputable accounting firms. Here in Chicago..." Hayden began to pitch his services.

"Hmm..." Song Ya didn't intend to use Hayden's close connections; he didn't want to be hoodwinked by his agent and accountant working in tandem later on. "They're very expensive, right?"

"Of course, but the fees are proportional to the service," Hayden replied.

"I'll think about it. How are things with the school? I just want to move out of the South Side as soon as possible..." Song Ya changed the subject.

"It's still early for the start of the school year. Based on your future income, we can appropriately increase the budget. Why not consider private middle schools? That way, it will be much faster to make a selection." Every time the topic of school came up, Hayden felt a headache coming on; it was really hard to find something based on Song Ya's previous budget and requirements.

"Fine..." Song Ya quoted a new number.

After Hayden left, Song Ya took the time to visit Goodman.

It had been a while, and Goodman's law firm had expanded. He had sublet the office across from his original one, which was much more spacious and even came with a middle-aged clerk.

"An accountant?" Goodman thought for a moment. "If you think the big firms are too expensive, there are many small firms in Chicago. Some even have only one accountant. Their main clients are the 'old money' class, and they have worked with these families for generations. Their history and reputation are actually no worse than those big firms. However, the waters are murky, and there's a possibility of being scammed, whereas you don't have that worry with big firms."

"Do you have any recommendations?" Song Ya asked him.

"Right, you have Chinese heritage, don't you!?" Goodman suddenly had an idea. "Chinese people are good at math, and many of them work in this field. Their reputation is also much better than other ethnic groups. Plus, they are relatively quiet, and their social circles aren't as complex as the Jewish community's... But there are downsides; many in Chinatown who do this work have ties to Chinese gangs, and their financial concepts are sometimes too conservative, while at other times they are extremely prone to gambling."

Song Ya was tempted. With Goodman's help, he interviewed several Chinese-American accountants and selected one who also shared the surname Song: Song Asheng. He was in his fifties, had no criminal record, had long served a local Chinese-American family, had an excellent reputation, and was from Ningbo, so he could communicate with Song Ya in Mandarin.

Not long after finalizing the contract with Song Asheng, the income from Song Ya's bet with Daniel arrived.

Because the retail prices of vinyl records and CDs were higher than cassettes, the three percent of the sales revenue from the first million singles brought Song Ya a little over two hundred thousand dollars. After deducting Hayden's ten percent and Song Asheng's fee, he walked away with exactly one hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

"Next, I need you to urge SBK to pay out my ten percent royalty share for the first time as well." With everything settled, Song Ya ordered happily.

"I know, Boss, don't you worry."

Song Asheng was thin, with a rare monocle firmly clamped in one eye socket. He put the documents away. "Anything else, Boss?"

Song Ya felt quite comfortable being called "Boss" in a Ningbo accent. "A friend suggested I register an audio company, mainly to manage some audio copyrights I've invented. Do you have any suggestions?"

This suggestion had come from Delay, who, seeing Song Ya trying to develop new synthesizer audio, had insisted that he must secure the copyrights first.

"For a company of this nature, it might be better to register it in Delaware. The taxes, legal affairs, and all other aspects are quite good..." Song Asheng suggested.

Song Ya chose to trust the professional. "Fine, you handle it. Register it as soon as possible. I'm a minor, so prepare any documents that require guardian authorization for me to sign."

"And the company name?" Song Asheng asked.

"Hmm..." Song Ya considered for a moment. "Let's use my nickname, APLUS. A+ Audio, what do you think?"

"Very good, very good, the name is very good." Song Asheng nodded repeatedly.