Updated 31 Oct 2010 (boo!)
OK, you’ve created your fantastic tracks/remixes; now, how to get them out there so that the world can marvel at them?
There are lots of ways. A real simple one, if you’re already into Myspace, is to use that service’s artist features. I don’t use them or know much about them, so I’ll have to refer you to there if that’s your route. If it is you probably already know a lot more about it than I do anyway. A lot of famous and successful acts have a big presence on that site, so I’m not going to get all snobbish and look down my nose at it. (But I am snobbish enough to not want to use it myself.)
Besides that, there is no lack of music-specific sites that offer all kinds of web labels, etc. to surf. But I don’t know if there’s very much information about: what sites are out there to upload, promote and possibly “monetize” your music.
I think a lot depends on your genre: that is, if you’re a folkie/filkie, rap/urban/hip hop artist, or in some other special category, you probably have your own favorite sites already. For instance, it appears that one of the main sites for dance producers is beatport.
I guess I fall into some other category then. If you’re interesting in hearing my tunes, great. If not, I expect you’ll move on rather than waste your time harshing on them.
I’ve already looked at this a little bit, and wrote my impressions in a MS Word file. I’ve converted it to this fancy OpenOffice ODT format (since that’s what WordPress seems to approve of) and I’ll stick it here until I can convert it to “proper” HTML.
Here it is in “odt” format (if you have Open Office Write): Places to put your music (OpenOffice Writer format) (and on this page I talk about Open Office if you don’t already know about it.)
(Incidentally, I removed the section about “Caution about last.fm”. I never saw the alarming popups that I once did and I have to believe they weren’t related to that site. So I’m back to recommending them.)
This is a summary of places on the net for musicians to upload and share and/or possibly sell their music. It’s mainly oriented towards musicians who have the “albums composed of individual tracks” model rather than “DJs creating dance music/remixing” model.
Warning!
These sites and their rules, parameters and viability are changing all the time, there’s no claim made that this is 100% accurate or up to date in any way, please use at your own risk. In fact sites and features change so quickly you could spend full time just keeping this page up to date — and so far I don’t see any offers of a full-time salary to do that.
soundcloud
I still love bandcamp (see below) to death, but for a higher octane tool for moving audio files for professionals, check out this site. One of the best things about it is its wordpress integration is even cooler than bandcamp’s (at least at the moment.) See http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/soundcloud/
In 2010 I can see a steady stream of improvements and enhancements to soundcloud. Professionals seem to be taking notice as well.
bandcamp
I just happened on this a little while ago. I wrote a few notes which you can read in the posts section on this site: My notes about bandcamp.com
“last.fm”
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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last.fm |
Free streaming/merchant site
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Pretty advanced. Allows you to decide how to stream/charge/allow |
“Createspace”
Not a music site per se; the place where you upload your digital music so it can be sold on Amazon. Requires you to enter your SSN and street address for royalty payments which makes me a bit nervous.
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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createspace.com |
Amazon’s captive download house. Mp3 download section is new, setup is free. Looks professional, like all their subcompanies |
9 Nov 2008: You have to enter your SSN and street address for royalty payments. Makes me a little nervous. |
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Formats: |
Audio: 44.1k aiff or 320kbps MP3. See notes below for detailed specs |
Image: 1488×1488 JPEG for album cover |
“amiestreet”
In 2010 this became part of Amazon. In fact, www.amiestreet.com redirects there now. I never pursued this but please don’t take that as a negative criticism. The table below is probably obsolete by now but shows the parameters of the original version of the site.
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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amiestreet.com |
Unusual model: songs start out free and rise in price until 0.98. |
2008 31 Oct: attempting to set up 2 albums; uploading failing. 2008 6 Nov: OK–this seems to be working now. The warnings from the uploads are due to too low bitrate on the MP3s. Can replace later… Sort of clunky looking at the moment, especially compared to |
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Formats: |
Audio: |
Images: |
“acidplanet”
I’m still fond of this site, which is basically underwritten by Sony Media Products, distributors of the venerable Acid music software. It’s really huge, there’s a ton of music on it (some awful, some great), lots of remix contests, and plenty to keep you busy exploring.
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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acidplanet.com |
not able to organize in terms of albums. Maybe that’s not a big deal anymore. Free! |
2008 30 Oct: added a song or two from the new project. Sort of a rough and ready place. It’s weird because you can’t upload the MP3 version until you upload a WMA version (!?) |
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Formats: |
Sort of weird. First you have to upload a WMA format version, THEN you can add more formats like MP3. Not too big of a problem for me but a strange architecture. Then |
Main artist page image: 200×555 gif or jpg, 100KB max Song icons: 70x70px gif or jpg, 30KB max |
“Soundclick”
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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soundclick.com/ |
pretty flexible and well-working interface. Has pay option for tracks; |
Needs some work. 2008 31 Oct: Put up a couple songs… There’s always work to be done! Need to set up albums, singles to sell, |
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Formats: |
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Images:Songs 100x100px jpg |
“Soundcloud”
The free version of this does limit you to 120 min of “cloud tape” (i.e., audio time). I filled that up pretty quickly so actually opted for the “Lite” membership option. For €29 per year (“how much is that in ‘real’ money, ho ho”) you get 240 min of storage time, more player widget options, and better statistics showing who and how many have downloaded/streamed your tracks, etc.
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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soundcloud.com |
Basic membership is free. First paid tier is €29 per year. Limitations: |
2010 5 Jun: this site apparently has legs and is getting more and more sophisticated and capable in 2010. They created a player which I can embed in my WordPress.com pages which of course endeared them to me mightily. A better place to park tunes than skydrive. No size limitations on files. People can go there andplay files immediately…skydrive they have to download them. |
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Formats: |
Audio: |
Images: |
Skydrive
This is also just a big file sharing site – this one is part of Microsoft (their “Live” suite). Since I’ve adopted dropbox and made more use of soundcloud, I’ve basically abandoned the need for this.
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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skydrive.live. |
They’ve increased the free storage space to 25GB – but the stupid thing limits each file to <50 MB. So if I want to store a large amount of data I have to split up the files using WinZip (fortunately it’s simple in that application) and upload the pieces in groups |
2010 2 Sep: This may be OK for other kinds of filesharing, but soundcloud is miles ahead in terms of features musicians and producers need. Video people are going to have a problem with the 50 MB file size restriction…I may be a nice guy and upload some of the tunes as OGG files to a skydrive folder for Live people to download… On 2008 Nov 7 I uploaded the “Synthetic” group and 6 of the |
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20081210 |
drop.io
A place to drop large files – it’s hard to figure out from their site but there appears to be a 100MB size limit (unless you sign up, etc.)
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
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http://drop.io |
Not sure what the maximum size is … it’s hard to tell from the site. But it doesn’t appear to have a 100 MB per |
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Dropbox
This is extremely interesting. Just happened upon it in summer 2010. You download a small client to your Mac or Windows machine. You then create a local folder on your desktop that basically mirrors a common folder in the “cloud.” You can customize the access to the common folder so that it is either available publicly or to specific people. As you move files to the folder on your local machine, the client automatically uploads them in the background.
Even in the early incarnation it’s in, it seems hassle-free and effective, even for very large (GB) files. I was leery of sticking yet another unknown client on my machine but it seems to be well-behaved and not malignant as far as I can tell.
Free users get 2GB space free; paying users can get as much as they want. This is much better for moving large files than drop.io or other equivalent services.
CDbaby
This place is unique in that it’s designed to give you a place to sell physical CDs. I’ve used their service for years and it’s the best of its kind (if not the only one of its kind that survives…)
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Site |
Deal |
Notes |
|
cdbaby.net |
Originally only a place to sell physical CDs. However, they do ship the audio files to a large number of online stores (iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.) |
In the last few years they have added the ability to buy digital tracks individually. The problem is that the name is still hanging in there and won’t attract new people (you wouldn’t think of “CD Baby” as a place to buy downloads.) |
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Links: |
All my released (physical) CDs |
other
(probably need to be completely free to be interesting here)
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Lulu |
Print-on-demand house |
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Virb |
Free to sign up Pay option Customization option |
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Sheesh..These guys |
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Rhapsody? |
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iTunes? |
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Napster? |
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Ampcast? |
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Reverbnation |
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Jamendo |
Free/CC site |
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Archive.org |
Very huge archive of |
Page#51 / last modified 20101031
