PaulWarning

I've been of the opinion that amp modeller pedals are just fancy preset EQ and distortion pedals for a while now, if they really worked you could just use a cheap Behringer set up and sound like anything you wanted

I'm not a fan of multi band bills tbh, don't even bother with the support band if I go to a major gig (it's the venues fault, the beer is always better and cheaper in the pub round the corner), in my experience being the 'headline act' is to be avoided being last on means all the other bands and their supporters have all f***ed off, leaving just you and anybody you've managed to convince to come along

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1493809452' post='3290790'] Depends how you wish to work with someone, but as you mention sound primarily, is it just an engineer you want? [/quote]beat me too it, if you know your songs well in advance (recommended unless you want to waste a lot of expensive studio time) it's just an engineer you want, a good one will ask you what/who you want to sound like and get you there, we used the same one and got a different sound out of our two albums because I insisted on a more ballsy sound for the second one, they're both on spotify, Verbal Warning

[quote name='Jecklin' timestamp='1493139136' post='3285990'] A timely thread. After the post on digital aggregators I too have been going over download sales figures in some depth. The gigs I've done recently where I have lugged CDs or Vinyl with me I have sold well and it annoys me I didn't pursue this more last year. What I'm seeing now is that my bandcamp sales are falling off considerably. I'll assume that's not because people don't like my stuff as I'm still clocking up a lot of complete listens, but this no longer translate into downloads even free ones! So folks are using my bandcamp presents simply to stream from. They don't consider "owning" a download as important. This has made me reconsider my strategy behind the album I want to record this year: If I release it on bandcamp I doubt I'll sell many/any. I'll only sell physical copies at gigs, so I need to carefully consider how many physical items to press. I wasn't going to put it on spotify, but now see it may be worth it as a loss leading exercise to reach an audience I otherwise wouldn't. Hopefully they will come to my gigs...... A great deal of my friends ONLY use spotify for their listening. I don't use it at all as a lot of music I listen to is not on there and I also begrudge being forced to use the internet as my main means of accessing "my" music. However this is not how most people operate these days. [/quote]Yes, I wasn't going to put our latest album on Spotify, but loads of people seem to be using it as their man source of music these days, me included

probably avoid in jokes, might seem funny to the band but would mean bugger all to anybody else, a lot of names would seem crap if suggested but over time they become wonderful, Beatles? Once chatting to a Bass player, don't know if he's on here, anyway, I asked him the name of his band "ZZ Birmingham" came the reply "Oh" says I "ZZ Top tribute?" "No" he says "we don't do any ZZ Top songs", tickled me no end that did

[quote name='Hamster' timestamp='1493190267' post='3286262'] Yeah, there's only the two bands playing. It's a home crowd for us but several comments here have confirmed my views about death by support band !!�� The main band is Rhino's Revenge and we are a Quo tribute, so hoping it will be a great night! [/quote]not your normal support gig then, presumable the place will be full of Quo fans, you might go down better than the main act, I assume Rhino don't do any Quo numbers? could get tricky if they do edit, personal preference remark, you'll defiantly go down better if you play with a pick

EQ, find out which trequency is booming, I have similar trouble with the A string booming around the 7th fret, I cut around 60Hz to tame it

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1493042908' post='3285110'] I've not bought any downloads only from Bandcamp. Is there some way that you can keep track of what you have purchased just in case you have a problem with your computer at some point in the future and you need to download them again? This one of the things that worries me most about downloaded music. It's keeping track of what I have bought and where I have bought it from. My current CD and Vinyl collection is over 2000 albums and singles. Should anything happen to the hard disk that they have been ripped to (and it's back-ups) I know that I can always go back to the originals as a last resort. What I don't know about are the few tracks that I have downloaded from various suppliers. I believe that anything I got from iTunes can be downloaded again, but not everything has come from such a mainstream source, and some of the downloads that I bought directly from bands in the early days of on-line distribution might not even be available any more. [/quote]I use google play to backup the songs on my computer, it's free for up to 50000 songs and syncs with the music folder on your computer only does MP3 though, I think

we play mostly punk covers with about 6 of our own songs thrown in, having said that we do Rosie and Ace of Spades, just to prove we can, which always goes down well (some people actually still believe if you do punk songs you can't really play) as ivansc said it is important to put on a show, just turning up in ill fitting jeans and a black T shirt staring at your feet while playing just doesn't cut it, Around our area Ska and Mod bands do particularly well, I actually think pubs are realising you need to put something different on

tried Chrome still got it (normally use Firefox), if it's virus on my computer how come it only happens on Basschat?

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1492881207' post='3283883'] In post #33 I mentioned removing Netfilter.2 solved all my troubles. It turned up after a Malware Bytes Anti-Malware scan. [url="https://www.fixyourbrowser.com/removal-instructions/how-to-remove-genvariant-adware-netfilter-2-removal-guide/"]https://www.fixyourb...-removal-guide/[/url] [/quote]ran adwcleaner, still getting it

30Kg? wouldn't bother, there's plenty of heavy weight second hand stuff about a lot lot cheaper that that

I do enjoy the Discover Weekly on Spotify feature where they pick tracks they think you might enjoy, scarily they don't pick many duff tracks for me, I guess I'm really predictable

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492688654' post='3282324'] Following on from a couple of recent discussions about music formats and digital aggregators, I was looking into how sales for the different formats of The Terrortones music broke down. I'd always known that we sold a lot more physical product than downloads, but what I didn't expect was just how much it was skewed towards the physical product, no matter whether you look at income or the number of songs sold. We weren't very good at keeping actual sales figures for the physical product, but looking at what I have left of each release and taking into account how many we gave away as promo copies, I can estimate that over 5 years we made around £2500 - about 600 actual items sold, split over the 4 releases. That's from selling CDs, records and cassettes mostly at gigs and the rest mail-order through our web site and Bandcamp. In the same time period we made $200 from downloads and streaming from CD Baby, and £80 from downloads on Bandcamp - roughly 10% of our total sales. Of all those sales streaming only accounts for about 15% (that's less than 2% of the total sales by value). Looking at the actual sales numbers for downloads it was 138 tracks from Bandcamp, 137 tracks from iTunes, 14 tracks from Amazon and 7 tracks from eMusic. Interestingly by far our most popular release on download was "The MonsterPussy Sessions" which was otherwise only available as a cassette, which probably goes to show that although our audience prefers physical product to downloads they also prefer downloads to cassettes! For The Terrortones audience at least (and we did have a good spread of ages across our audience), physical product is far more popular than downloads, although they will buy downloads (in limited numbers) if there is no corresponding physical product, or if it is on a less popular format like cassette. Geographical location doesn't seem to be a problem. We sell a large number of our CDs and records to addresses outside of the UK, so AFAICS our audience isn't choosing to buy downloads because it is easier and cheaper than getting the physical product shipped to them. This tallies with my experience as an audience member. I have to admit that I am biased towards CDs, but I find that I buy most of my new music from bands at gigs. It goes a bit like this: I've enjoyed the band, had a couple of beers and there's money still in my pocket. If the band has CDs for sale I'll buy one (maybe even 2). The next day when I listen to them sometimes they are great, sometimes they are disappointing compared with my memory of the gig, and sometimes after a couple of listens a disappointing CD will start to grow on me. However if the band only has downloads available they are at a distinct disadvantage. Even if they have a card with the web address on it, there's a good chance I'll have lost it by the time I remember to check out their music, I might not even remember who the band were by then. That's a sale definitely lost. Also the next day when the buzz of the gig has worn off, I might not be quite so enamoured with the music when I check it out on iTunes before spending my money. A CD available at the gig is a definite sale. A download in the cold light of the following day... probably not. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Also (probably because of my age) I can't help but feel that a band who have gone to the trouble and expense to put their music on CD or Vinyl take themselves a bit more seriously. And I'll take them more seriously too. After all anyone with recording and $50 can get their music up on iTunes etc. It's hardly a big deal any more. So are there any musicians on here who are selling more downloads than CDs and records? And how do you feel as an audience member. Does anyone buy a download after a gig? Would you rather be buying physical product? [/quote]thanks for that, we've decided to go with Soundrop for digital distribution because we don't think we'll sell many downloads, your analysis seems to reinforce that, I will be checking out bandcamp though, and our albums are available on Big Cartel, not heard them mentioned yet, it's free up to 5 items, payment via payapal

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492595351' post='3281437'] Especially when your band is named after the singer! The final line-up of The Terrortones was guitarist number 8 and drummer number 5. Anyway back to the OP have you decided on an aggregator then? The Terrortones used CD Baby, and I've used Catapult Distribution in the past. Both have been perfectly good, although it does take a long time for your first payment to come through. [/quote]bloody hell, 8 Guitarists and 5 drummers? I think I'd have given up long ago, band discussion this Wednesday, I think it will be a toss up between CD baby or Soundrop, depends whether we think it's worth paying the upfront fee, I think they all take the first few quid (£10?) before they start paying you

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492590836' post='3281368'] Thanks! My time with The Terrortones was not only musically rewarding, but also the most fun I've ever had in a band. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm ever in that situation again. It's a pity it's over, but IME nothing lasts for ever and while from a song writing PoV we still had plenty of new ideas, had the band carried on we would have been looking for yet another guitarist and drummer. The most disappointing thing about the end of the band was the fact that we had just taken delivery of our first proper full-length album which was getting a lot of interest, but in the absence of any gig activity, few reviewers or publications were prepared to give it any real exposure, which means that I have a load of boxes full of unsold records and CDs. [/quote]guitarists and drummers are replaceable as I have found out, with good frontmen and singers it can be impossible

have I missed an announcement? didn't know you'd stop gigging, what's behind that? assuming you want to tell us of course, if you don't that's ok

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1492511695' post='3280780'] There is no right answer to this question although the aggregator mentioned in the OP is obviously the wrong answer for everyone except the lazy and stupid. What you have to do is look at the deals and work out which is best for you in terms of projected sales vs up-front costs. Unless you can guarantee a lot of download sales I would go for one with a single fixed fee and who takes the lowest percentage of your sales. If you do go with CD Baby, don't bother with the "Pro" version as they don't offer anything that UK artists with PRS and PPL membership don't already have for free. I also wouldn't bother with getting the aggregator to do your physical product distribution. IME the vast majority of sales come from people buying CDs and records at gigs. If you don't have the technical know-how to set up your own merch page on your website then Bandcamp seems to offer the best VFM. One thing that all the aggregators make a big deal of is how many different service they will get you music on to. However does anyone actual use any service other than iTunes, Amazon and Spotify? When I look at our stats, that is where 99% of our income comes from. [/quote]I'd agree with all that, the only thing to consider is the upfront verses commission fee which depends on digital sales, CD baby with a one off upfront fee and no commission or Soundrop (just 7 sites but all the ones you'll need I would imagine) with no upfront fee but 15% of sales, now where did I put that crystal ball?

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1492339657' post='3279469'] Distrokid don't remove it when you stop paying. I used them for an album in January last year, the music is still there on Amazon and Spotify etc. [/quote]but do they still pass on any sales revenue? I'm sort of looking at Soundrop, no upfront charges but they take 15%,(after the digital stores 30%) seeing as we're not expecting may sales it's tempting

[quote name='woodster' timestamp='1492326703' post='3279357'] The only issue I found with Distrokid is if you stop paying the $20 per year, all your music is removed. I'm not sure if that is still the case? If so, I guess it's great for artists who have regular material to release. [/quote]this is one of the things you have to take into account, some have a one off fee (CD baby) some have a yearly fee, some have no fee but take a bigger percentage and presumable some do more than others, like putting the album into to record shops, there's a lot of things to take into account once you start looking into it.

thanks guys, I'll check them out

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1492260190' post='3279064'] My thoughts exactly. It's like it's a music program devised by a focus group (like a lot of BBC programming). Speaking of TOTP, given that the Beeb don't seem to tire of rehashing that cheese-fest, why don't they repeat some Whistle Test too? [/quote]quiet a lot of TOGWT content appears in oldies music programmes, watched one on the yesterday channel of all places the other day which was almost exclusively Whistle Test content, there's a bit of rose coloured specs going on here, there was an awful lot of crap on the Whistle Test as well as the good stuff, bit like Jools

found this article, http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2014/05/29/digital-distribution-company-review/ so we'll probably decide whether we want to pay an upfront fee or pay a higher commission rate, but not both!

[quote name='McBass' timestamp='1492251925' post='3278958'] You pay £60 to give them 10% of sales, 20% of your publishing and 50% of your PPL, what exactly are they offering in return? If you are a member of the MU get their lawyers to look over the contract, i bet they find more holes in it than a block of Emmmental cheese. [/quote]doesn't seem good does it?, our guitarist is good at contracts used to do it for a living, he's sorted all these pitfalls out, the 50% PPL fee seems particularly harsh I registered with them to get the IRSC code for our new album so I should get them direct shouldn't I? We want to get the album on the download sites like itunes, Amazon, Google play etc and you have to use an Aggregater to do that by the looks of it, so has anybody got any good stories to tell?

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1492250777' post='3278948'] [/quote]