ah, you would think so, wouldn’t you?
But, with major label productions, you have more hands taking from the cookie jar, hence the higher cost.
Steve Albini, a producer, wrote a very interesting article on this:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
and this site has a lot of information for musicians:
http://rainmusic.com/articles/#Music%20Career
Don’t stream the music, seven. there is nothing more annoying to an internet user with a low speed connection than streaming. you get little bits at a time, it takes ages to even start, drops out, and in the end you think ‘why bother? this guy, who i’ve never heard of, wants me to hear his music, and he can’t even give me a song or two?’
i’d just lower the number of songs you give away. i’d think 3 at most would be able to let people work out whether they like you or not (i’ve bought albums after hearing one song, usually, if i like three i’m sold). it’s kinda like releasing singles, i spose.
And a lack of planning on your part is a problem for the artist, how exactly?
I’d offer no more than half of the CD as downloadable MP3s. Also, consider offering the option of RealAudio streaming. Sure, not everyone likes RealAudio, but Amazon.com uses it as their audio samples, and it can’t hurt to offer the option, for those who don’t mind RealAudio.
I used to have a film music web page (I’m a soundtrack geek, OK?) where I had TONS of complete RealAudio samples of rare, obscure or out of print soundtrack music. (And then I offered a few MP3s as well—but only a few.) People seemed to love it. Sure, RealAudio isn’t as great as MP3, but even crappy old computers with slower speeds can run RealAudio (well, at least my crappy old computer could, on 33.6!). RealAudio can be at “FM radio” quality, which is good enough for someone to know if they like enough to buy.
(I eventually got rid of my RealAudio film music site, BTW. Even though my intentions were only to expose and promote these more obscure pieces of music, and even though I always linked to Amazon.com and Varese Sarabande and urged visitors to buy their own CD [if a CD was available], I knew that I was “technicaly” violating someone’s copyright. So, no more of that!)
I am also appalled that people are so damned CHEAP that they think you almost “owe” them all your music for free. Artists get this too. All artsy types get it, I’ll warrant. People think that artists do this for “fun” and that they shouldn’t charge for it. Artists should be “honored” that someone likes their stuff! Yeah! So, just give it all away! That’s the ticket! :rolleyes:
Funny how the ‘they cost too much’ line of thinking when justifying music theft is not equally applied to BMW’s, houses, Rolex’s, etc.
Theft is theft. While yes, you can easily get away with online music theft, and it seems that many people can easily jusitfy it (to themselves),it is still theft.
Ya ya, fuck the RIAA. CD’s are overpriced. I agree. But that gives nobody the right to steal IP.
WOW. Look at all these replies!
There are a lot of good ideas here and I took them to heart. I have changed the songs on the CD’s to be lo-fi stream only. You can stream the entire song at 24kbps mono. Kind of AM radio effect. We will see if this stops the e-mails.
And, I do sell some CD’s. More so from my electronic band The Tic Tok Men then my personal jazz stuff. It’s just the attitude of some people. But I bet I get an equal amount of e-mail asking to offer songs for free downloads as I do CD sales.
This one was a kicker. I got an e-mail from a guy who said he found one of the Tic Tok Men tracks on-line about a year ago, downloaded it and REALLY liked it. Something happened to the file he downloaded and wanted to get it again, but he couldn’t find the song on the webpage. He wanted to know if this song was on-line and where could he download it.
This e-mail was sent to me though the webpage I sell my CD’s from. There is a rather large section at the top of the main page that talks about the new CD “Arecebo”. The song he was looking for? You guessed it. “Arecebo”.
Am I wrong in being kind of insulted by that? The way the website is set up there is no way he could have missed the fact the track is on the CD. Hell, the CD is named after the track.
HA. I just realized I wrote this in my OP.
“My studio costed a lot of money to assemble.”
Ye-haw. My dang dern studio costed a lots of them there greenback thingy-ma-giggys yersiree.
*feels kind of stupid for typing ‘costed’ *
heh heh
I don’t own any of those things, either. I drive a 95 Toyota Tercel and I wear a watch I got at Target for $20.00.
The RIAA isn’t losing any money on me, because if I couldn’t get music for free (or uber-cheap used), I’d just have no music at all.
I don’t get bent out of shape if someone prints out the artwork from my site and tacks it on the wall because they can’t afford the original.
If I had the money, I would buy CDs. If they were cheaper, I’d buy them. But I don’t and they aren’t. And I have a hard time feeling guilty about downloading the latest pop artist off Gnutella when I’m not even going to be interested in the song a week from now when the novelty’s worn off. I do buy CDs, but I buy them from smaller labels and much more obscure artists – stuff that I’ll actually want to hear more than a dozen or so times.
If the RIAA wants me to buy music, they can make something that I want to buy (and price it so I can afford it.)
This is somewhat of a hijack, but isn’t it pathetic when there’s so much of the current pop music that has such a short shelf life?
I have a feeling that Seven’s music is a little bit different, has more depth, and will not become stale in a week’s time. (Or a month—or a year.) The kind of music we should be spending our money on.
Then again, if you don’t like the current pop music enough to buy it, perhaps you should settle for catching it on the radio. Usually the shallow “flash in the pan” songs are played every hour on the hour. You should be able to get your fill that way.
Of the local indie band I follow, none of them puts more than 3 or 4 songs on their sites for download. I think it’s a good idea, since it’s enough to help a consumer decide if they like it enough, but few enough to make them want more.
Yeah, maybe there are other people like me who wouldn’t dream of downloading every track of a cd and burning it (single tracks, on the other hand…) instead of buying the cd, but I doubt I’m in the majority. I buy as many cds as before I discovered the wonderful world of file-sharing.
Do you distribute your cds through a local store? If you do, adding something to the page with the downloads that tells people where to buy it is helpful too.
Fuckin’ A, dude. Right now, there’s a price-point that manages to screw everyone over, including the consumer.
[list][li]The artist gets screwed because he didn’t get any royalties for his/her work;[/li]
[li]The distributor/producer/sociopath gets screwed because s/he didn’t get to screw the artist;[/li]
[li]The consumer gets screwed because s/he reduces the likelihood of the artist producing more good shit; perhaps more importantly, the consumer listens to shit, because of the shitty nature of the MP3.[/li]
And yet, I went to replace a CD I misplaced and discovered that it is now commanding the royal price of $16.99, twenty years after it was released. I’d feel better about it if Robert Fripp saw more pennies than he flipped into that Buddhist well that one day for his trouble, but according to my pals on the inside, such is not the case.
So I’m just not going to listen to King Crimson’s Discipline anymore, despite the fact that it might be the best hot-weather album ever created. Thela Hun Gingeet, Thela Hun Gingeet.
I listen to the music on the radio. When I was younger, I just recorded the songs on my tape deck from the radio, and I’d record over the same tape repeatedly as I got sick of the songs and changed for new ones.
I’m just doing the same thing downloading mp3s now.