digital music distribution options

[jsg4z]

beatport isnt accepting new artists. are there any good alternatives other than itunes? something which moderately protects the files from theft but doesnt use any crazy DRM.

[auditory canvas]

Beatport doesn't work with artists directly, they will only work with labels and distributors. They also have a content control system in place that removes labels if they have less than $300 per quarter in sales for 2 consecutive quarters.

Similar alternatives to Beatport for dance music specific stores are:

DJdownloads.com
audiojelly
beatsdigital
trackitdown.net
dancetracksdigital

None of them will deal directly with artists though, only labels and distributors. A good way to get on all of them including Beatport is to use a service like feiyr.com

[UKRuss]

If you are dabbling for the first time try somethign low cost to see how your tracks are received and if they sell. Try 7digital.

If you go well you can upgrade to the servcies that dish your chown out to the distributors like Beatport and iTunes, that costs more cash and the question is, will you make your cash back?

All well and good if its just a vanity release and you just wanty it out there. But at some stage you gotta recoup your investment no?

[leedsquietman]

audiojelly and beats digital are both good with lots of options for pricing and formats etc.

Screw beatport - I do no business with them and haven't for ages, way too much samey stuff not worth buying and their conditions for having your music on there are too restrictive - some say 'it helps quality control, but if you scan through their releases, it's still 90% bullsh*t, just like anywhere else'.

recoup investment on what exactly ?? A big part of the problem are people who produce garbage using cracked copies of software they paid nothing for, who think they are 'producers' now, with no idea on mixing or mastering except they gotta put out something LOUD and pumping. Then they try to sell their crap everywhere, and flooding the market with crap just leaves people annoyed and frustrated and not likely to drop some coin on the better paid product from real musicians out there, who really invested in buying their products and taking real time to make a quality product.

Gigging is what is sustaining most musicians these days - music sales are just dismal for most, including many major label artists, record companies now get royalties and rights for your gigs, merchandise, licensing your music for ads and even your image (so cream off your image on any ads, photoshoots etc). The music is just a loss leader for all this extra dough

[UKRuss]

Having a good day Leeds?

[blage]

junodownload is the one I use to release tracks and also buy tracks.

They started off by selling records and have had a digital website for a few years now

You can sell your tracks at whatever price you want to sell them for and you can choose the quality of the release (mp3, wav etc..)



http://www.junodownload.com/

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, look for label resources (bottom right) and click label sign up, it will link you to the label sign up form.

[leedsquietman]

Having a good day Leeds?

you know me TOO well

[bossyandrew]

Thanks for your recommend,Leads~~!

[UKRuss]

DOM? Anyone? can't we get rid of this 'BossyAndrew' guy???

Jebus, what kind of life is logging on to other peoples forums and spamming in your sig. Sad, sad and lonely.

[sven303]

JSG4Z:
Plenty of other digital stores, cant recommend Juno or Trackitdown enough.
Might be worth you finding a digital distributor that will get your track on beatport if your that adamant about dealing with them.
Do a search in google for 'digital music distributor' plenty of them about.

LEEDS:
Agree with your view on Beatport...i hate trying to deal with them, absolutely no client management respect. Id kick em in to touch if it was my decision.

UKRUSS:
You made a comment about bossyandrew putting links to advertising, but is a soundcloud, myspace & website not advertising as well?

[UKRuss]

Yes. Yes it is.

But I think we all know what I meant. Unless your point is that we're all spammers and should be banned?

[shuutobi]

Not really distribution, but this is my favorite option for selling music:
http://www.bandcamp.com

[creature]

I use tunecore for my distro the do itunes, napster, rhapsody, lala, lime wire, shock hound etc been using them for a few years now and they are pretty good and cheap.

http://www.tunecore.com

Steve

[creature]

bandcamp.com

+1 on this. I also use them for selling albums from my site. it has been quite successful adn means I dont have to host the albums on my own hosting server

[leedsquietman]

it's fine, better still if you can recoup the admin fees for using this service, which is about 30-37 dollars setup for an album for the first year, and then 19.99 each year thereafter, but it does put your music in itunes globally and rhapsody.

Many people selling digital downloads will fail to make the 55 bucks over 2 years to recoup this, but with a good product and some willingness to market yourself, it should be no problem.