Getting your stuff on Itunes etc.

[CamdenRob]

Morning all,

More advice needed from the learned BC collective...

One of my bands has recorded a few demo tracks and I'm lookiing to get them up on Itunes as a free download. Also maybe on spotify? however that works?

Is this easy to do? How would I go about it?

Cheers

Rob

Edited December 15, 2015 by CamdenRob

[Pinball]

I'd check Spinnup now as they may still have their "free single distribution" offer on. It/s due to finish around now though

Edited December 15, 2015 by Pinball

[CamdenRob]

Looking into it a bit and Itunes looks pretty complicated ISRCs and UPSc, US Tax IDs etc

Maybe soundcloud is the way to go afterall...

How are you guys getting your music out there?

Edited December 15, 2015 by CamdenRob

[mcnach]

For a few demo tracks SoundCloud is perfect.

Bandcamp is also very useful. It allows you to sell electronic and/or physical CDs very easily. You may also offer things for free or as a 'name your price' option. So this is quite convenient and easy to set up, a very easy way to put your music out there and perhaps sell some if that's what you're after. It's free, kind of. They take a cut of 10% of your sales, but you don't pay anything upfront.

Once you have an album and you want to sell it, companies like 'emubands' are invaluable. We've used them for our two albums. They do charge, I think it was £50. But they deal with all the hassle and get your music on amazon, spotify, itunes, google play and more places... We haven't made much money from any of those (Bandcamp is best in that respect) but it allows people to find our music more easily, and frankly that's what we're more interested in not the actual cash.

[CamdenRob]

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1450168188' post='2930111']
We haven't made much money from any of those (Bandcamp is best in that respect) but it allows people to find our music more easily, and frankly that's what we're more interested in not the actual cash.
[/quote]

Yes thats our aim too. Thanks for all that

I think they are planning on doing the bandcamp thing anyway, I was just wanting to explore other options.

[pantherairsoft]

To get on iTunes you need to go through an aggregator or a label (mist of which go through an aggregator). Same is true of Spotify, Deezer, Amazon and a pile of others.

Sound cloud is perfect for demos. Bandcamp is my platform of choice. Love it. And you make more being in control. When it comes to selling, iTunes equals pennies in your pocket, and Bandcamp equals pounds!

[RockfordStone]

if you wanna get them out there free i would use bandcamp, sound cloud will wreck the quality where as band camp wont

[JamesBass]

You'd have to pay a fee to an aggregator who will sort most sites out for you. There's no point doing that if it's going to be a free download. Pretty sure SoundCloud has a free download option somewhere as well, as it's a demo I'd stick to the free sites so you can link the stuff about etc.

[ras52]

[quote name='JamesBass' timestamp='1450174657' post='2930180']
SoundCloud has a free download option somewhere as well,
[/quote]

There's a limit of 100 on how many times a track can be downloaded - at least at the free membership level.

[RockfordStone]

or you just upload them to drop box and send the download link out via facebook?

[CamdenRob]

Thanks guys

Sounds like Bandcamp is the answer... I think the more technical minded band members are sorting something out for that anyway

[BigRedX]

If you want your tracks on Spotify you'll need to go through an aggregator. There's a good number of different ones and all offer different deals so there's no overall best one only the best one for what you want to achieve, so you'll need to check out all the services yourself and see which one best meets your needs. Expect to pay around $50 for an album's worth of tracks. The aggregator will also get you on most of the other digital distribution channels such as iTunes and Amazon - they should give you some level of choice as to which ones you are on which you are not.

AFAIK there's no way to get on iTunes for free unless you are a big name artist. If someone knows different and can let us know how it is done, please post here.

From what you are saying Bandcamp does seem to be best option for you. However IME it's a little bit of an "Indie Ghetto". Fine if your core audience is other musicians and people who have a major interest in discovering new music. However your average music consumer will want to stick to what they consider the "safe" options which means iTunes, Amazon, and listening on Spotify. For example, despite the fact that it was possible to download our "MonsterPussy Sessions" for free from Bandcamp, are aggregator stats show that just as many people have paid to download them from iTunes or Amazon!

Edited December 15, 2015 by BigRedX

[ras52]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1450179984' post='2930249']
However your average music consumer will want to stick to what they consider the "safe" options which means iTunes, Amazon, and listening on Spotify. [/quote]

Also - and perhaps especially - YouTube. This is where my 12yo goes to listen to music. You don't need to have a "proper" video to have a presence there - although if can make one, all the better - a still picture or a simple slideshow will do.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1450180258' post='2930259']
Also - and perhaps especially - YouTube. This is where my 12yo goes to listen to music. You don't need to have a "proper" video to have a presence there - although if can make one, all the better - a still picture or a simple slideshow will do.
[/quote]

If you release your music through CD Baby one of the options is for them to create a YouTube version of the track - just your album cover art static while the track plays. I would expect some of the other aggregators to offer something similar.

[Pinball]

[quote name='Pinball' timestamp='1450166994' post='2930100']
I'd check Spinnup now as they may still have their "free single distribution" offer on. It/s due to finish around now though
[/quote]
An update: if you want to get 1 track out there free the offer that ends on the 16th December (tomorrow).
I'm not recommending them as the best option and I'm not sure that they allow a free download but it gets your name on Amazon, Itunes, Spotify and everywhere else.

https://spinnup.com/gb?gclid=CjwKEAiAkb-zBRC2upezwuyguQ4SJADZG08vtTNfIBF3wlP6n5iLHIwPP29jWSU-GSDLxAlp9576thoCC-jw_wcB

[TorturedSaints]

For the OP, as far as I know, you can't have a free download on iTunes. I'm pretty sure that iTunes sets their own pricing. We use www.distrokid.com which was cheap with a first year deal (about £20 as far as I remember) and they deal with all the UPC/ISRC admin trivia, but we were unable to set our prices for iTunes, so Apple set our prices for us at 99p per track.

Another option is www.nimbit.com which we have also used, and there you can do free downloads (or mark it as 'donation ware' and let people donate what they think your music is worth - so far we've not had much lol). I'm pretty sure it's free to sign up for the basic package (which doesn't include iTunes submission) and they take (for the basic level package) about 10% cut of sales. We never looked at bandcamp, but a lot of people use it, but we do use Soundcloud for quick and dirty uploads, or dropbox for rough ideas.

Hope this helps

Ralph

Edited December 15, 2015 by RalphDWilson

[ambient]

I use Distrokid. It costs something like £10 a year for unlimited uploads of albums or songs. They put them onto amazon, iTunes, spotify etc.

Bandcamp is good, that's free, you can also sell CDs and merch through it.

Edited December 16, 2015 by ambient

[ambient]

A lot of respected people I know use bandcamp, Steve Lawson for example, and there's an amazing guy who releases under the name Machinefabriek. It's a very professional, customisable sight, that works and it's free.

[BigRedX]

Bandcamp is only free if you are only offering downloads and not charging for them. On everything else they take 10%.

If you are selling physical product (CDs/vinyl/cassettes) you would be better of learning a bit of HTML and building your own merch page and using PayPal to process the payments.

[CamdenRob]

Thanks chaps... Lots to investigate.