Øyvind Skald Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 (edited) Do you release your own music online? How and where do you do it? Any experience (good or bad)? I have just 7 alternatives here. Been using ReverbNation before. But thinking of switch for something easier now. But I don’t stress for myself. This is more to help out some friends of mine, who are going to start releasing songs. My list is, Amuse: https://amuse.io/ ArtistPR: http://artistpr.com Catapult: https://www.catapultdistribution.com/ CD Baby: https://cdbaby.com/ Distrokid: https://distrokid.com/ ONErpm: https://onerpm.com/ Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/ Tunecore: https://www.tunecore.com/ Amuse is just a Android/iPhone app. You cannot upload from PC, but the rest is normal web based stuff. If you know more distros don’t hesitate to bring them up to. Edited January 3, 2019 by ØSkald 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hidden Symmetry Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I'll add Catapult to your list. Catapult My only con is that there's a take down fee. Unless you think you'll be selling lots of product I wouldn't go with any that have a yearly fee. There's also this older reference page to check out: https://aristake.com/post/cd-baby-tunecore-ditto-mondotunes-zimbalam-or 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 (edited) I have. CDBaby was the best back then. They had a good brick & mortar distribution deal. Don't know who people use nowadays though. Anyway, there were very few sales online when I used them. You could sell a bunch more CD's at your gigs than anywhere else. However, I understand that young people don't buy many CD's these days. About the only way to make money now is through the gigs themselves, which thankfully, pay much better than they used to. You still need to have albums for sale though just so you can get reviews and some good press. I haven't done this in a long time though, so I'm looking forward to the answers you get here because I hope to be playing out again in the spring or summer. I should say that one thing I didn't like about CDBaby is that they had no way to actually remove product once you had it for sale. That is, you can stop selling a CD, but it's still listed at places like Amazon even though it may not be for sale anymore. Why they don't pull the listings is beyond me. Edited January 3, 2019 by Will Hackett 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjornpdx Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I have two albums with CDBaby that I did about 8 years ago. It was fairly painless to set up and it wasn't that expensive. At that time they insisted on physical media so I sent them 5 home produced CDs of each album. Not sure if they require CDs now. They arranged the digital distribution so my albums can be found on YouTube, Spotify, Google Music, iTunes and other places. They have a pretty good accounting overview which I check out now and then. I get one of two cents (or less) when listeners stream one of my tracks. I wasn't looking to make money doing this, it was just for the experience and fun of it. You'd have to really market yourself to get any kind of income through CDBaby or the other distribution companies. It is kinda cool though to see your music listed on iTunes and Amazon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slugbaby Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I went through CDBaby for my last 2 albums as well. Somewhat low-cost, it's really simple and has widespread distribution. Don't do it for money though - my 2017 album has earned about 10% of what my 2014 one did, and i think the 2017 one is more popular. The difference between 2014-era MP3 purchases vs. 2017/2018 streaming income. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelhanson Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I believe that Reece (Beagle) used CDBaby to release our last 2 CD's. I know we have gotten a little traffic on Spotify and Pandora, also on iTunes. Not enough to write home about, but we hope it will help subsidize the next CD. We sold most of our CD's ourselves, if not given them away. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
synkrotron Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I use Bandcamp for my finished albums and SoundCloud for individual tracks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhonoBrainer Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 If you love something, release it, and if it comes back to you, and only three other people in the world hear it, then that's modern music for you. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 Did anybody see that film--The Legend of 1900? I saw it when someone posted it on YT. It may still be there if you search for it. Anyhow, it was about a guy who was reported to be the world's greatest pianist, but in order to see or hear him you had to buy a ticket to ride the cruise ship he worked on. He grew-up on the ship and never left it even when it docked. He refused to make records (actually he did make one single begrudgingly, but only a couple of people ever heard it) or play on the radio. His reasoning was, why should people want to come to his gigs if they can hear him at home? But what was really intriguing was the fact that he was a great improviser, making up whole tunes on the spot, great tunes that left people in awe, but unless you were on-board the ship the night he played them, you would never hear them, and they were of course only played once. Kind of cool when you think about it. Who needs records? What a novel attitude. Here's a neat scene where Jelly Roll Morton comes to the ship and challenges him to a piano duel: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starise Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 I released an album on CD baby. I didn't promote it and it didn't fly very far. My expectations were low. Not because I didn't think people would like the music. Mainly because I knew that no marketing or push would result in little sales. Amazon or no Amazon, without a push of some kind you are buried under miles of other albums almost immediately. The day you release your album 100 other people did too. I didn't do it for the money. I just wanted an album online. You fortunes could reverse if you could somehow maintain a high visibility on search engines. Good luck with that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Øyvind Skald Posted January 4, 2019 Author Share Posted January 4, 2019 I wonder if the music is on that clop is anything like the one of the poano player it is based on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Øyvind Skald Posted January 4, 2019 Author Share Posted January 4, 2019 (edited) 32 minutes ago, Starise said: I released an album on CD baby. I didn't promote it and it didn't fly very far. My expectations were low. Not because I didn't think people would like the music. Mainly because I knew that no marketing or push would result in little sales. Amazon or no Amazon, without a push of some kind you are buried under miles of other albums almost immediately. The day you release your album 100 other people did too. I didn't do it for the money. I just wanted an album online. You fortunes could reverse if you could somehow maintain a high visibility on search engines. Good luck with that. Yeah. I guess your right. But if the music is up on streaming services it can be an “after sale” effect if you play a concert and people wants to hear more in the days after. To make it like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and so on isn’t working anymore without a record label that protects your for competition. We all know that most singer that work as session singer are more talented than Gaga and Perry and so on. Not that Gaga and Perry are not talented, but they didn’t get the job because of just talent. And what about Tosin Abasin (Animals As Leaders)? I know he is hated by many because of his guitars, but just concentrate on his music now. They are working their ends off and they are playing gigs, getting sales and have fun. It works out if you don’t think you are gonna be a millionaire without working for it, but wants to make music. I have a little hope tho, that in this mess the streaming services has made, there will come out a more real and healthy music business. The days of big band/stars are over, and those who wants to sell music today, has to deliver. Edited January 4, 2019 by ØSkald Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted January 6, 2019 Share Posted January 6, 2019 On 1/4/2019 at 12:24 PM, ØSkald said: I wonder if the music is on that clop is anything like the one of the poano player it is based on. Some of it is, yes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Øyvind Skald Posted January 6, 2019 Author Share Posted January 6, 2019 10 hours ago, Will Hackett said: Some of it is, yes. Thats really cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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