why are distributions keep going broke?

[MARKEG]

NOW PLEASE get back on track.

This forum is about solutions, not getting upset that you're about to be pushed into the background. Can we please get back to the original direction and topic matter???

[MARKEG]

Jon, I'm not reading clear cut to the point replies. It's always got to involve you or your label. GRRR. Look at the general picture mate, take yourself out of your box. Then I think you could really make a seriously great contribution to this discussion. We really have to find a solution here.

[jon connor]

I just can't believe how this thread has gone. And I'm GOBSMAKED - no, in fact totally BEWILDERED as to why no-one picked up on the Paul Edge article. In fact I could delete the whole rest of the pages here in between and finally we might have a good discussion. But seeing as though you've alll gone of this mad mission I'll say my thoughts...


Dirty Bass is SPOT ON. Vinyl is dying, we're all a bunch of junkies just grasping at straws. This forum is about finding the future, CD is NOT the the future either. MP3 is the latest technology. Interent what we have to look at. Understand.

I've read so much crap in these last 7 pages, I'm about to explode. Who cares about old fashioned ideals and the 'old' way of running the game. Sure we'll make it last as long as we can but, we're alll about to become lonely old men. We have to move on and find a solution.

READ PAUL EDGE'S ARTICLE AGAIN. PLEASE.

i no mark mp3 is the future its why im trying to think of ideas which can enable us to play the same way with updated technology dude! . mp3 is the way forward, final scratch etc is also a huge breakthrough, but man i dont no there has to be sum answers. u no me when pasionte bout summit! i love the whole concept of the skill and way we play vynyl ,its just me. suppose im starting to greeve early, vynyl is my freind and will be sadly missed when it goes, it will be like the final scene in lord of the rings , when frodo and elfs etc leave forevever.

vynyl is part of the earth also it is played by part of the earth to. a diamond on the needle mabey thats wots give it its energergy and sparkle and unique sound. oh well! if its guna appen its gunna appen. :cry:

[MARKEG]

Grieve and get over it quick. Make it last as long as you can. Fair play if that's you're game. But we all need to find the future and I believe the Internet is that future.

Right now back on topic. And I want to talk about Paul's article. Distributors are made up of wanna be musicians who don't know the first thing about buisness.

Labels - when is the last time your distributor talked to you about PROMOTION (apart from sending out 50 white labels). It's bloody obvious what the problem is. Promotion, product, place. So where is your promotion? Hmmmm... Place - internet. Product - disco bag with shitty sticker. Promotion - 50 god damn whites??????

Oh come on, please someone take control before I weep.

[jon connor]

Jon, I'm not reading clear cut to the point replies. It's always got to involve you or your label. GRRR. Look at the general picture mate, take yourself out of your box. Then I think you could really make a seriously great contribution to this discussion. We really have to find a solution here.

woooo there fella! i was replying to dirty bass on somthings i was trying ,there is only 1 mention of my label, there .if its is the promo below ive put in my profile bothering you i will remove.
;)

my posts are genuine and im doing everthing possible for the future of welsh techno, and vynyl for as long as it is here. i no you not gettin at me but mark i have to stand up for wot i beleive in. and mate im well and truly out of my box! i no my mission and where its heading, unfortunatly the distruction of vynyl is irratating me,ive worked hard to get to this stage im at now due to unfortunate misshaps over the years. mabey i should just give up.in anycase why pick me out of every 1 else ? i feel like a fool!

[jon connor]

Grieve and get over it quick. Make it last as long as you can. Fair play if that's you're game. But we all need to find the future and I believe the Internet is that future.

Right now back on topic. And I want to talk about Paul's article. Distributors are made up of wanna be musicians who don't know the first thing about buisness.

Labels - when is the last time your distributor talked to you about PROMOTION (apart from sending out 50 white labels). It's bloody obvious what the problem is. Promotion, product, place. So where is your promotion? Hmmmm... Place - internet. Product - disco bag with shitty sticker. Promotion - 50 god damn whites??????

Oh come on, please someone take control before I weep.

i no mark you are right, people av gone crazy!!!!!!!!! and the world gone mad.the internet is the new force!

[MARKEG]

>woooo there fella! i was replying to dirty bass on somthings i was trying >,there is only 1 mention of my label, there .if its is the promo below ive >put in my profile bothering you i will remove.


>my posts are genuine and im doing everthing possible for the future of >welsh techno, and vynyl for as long as it is here. i no you not gettin at >me but mark i have to stand up for wot i beleive in. and mate im well >and truly out of my box! i no my mission and where its heading, >unfortunatly the distruction of vynyl is irratating me,ive worked hard to >get to this stage im at now due to unfortunate misshaps over the years. >mabey i should just give up.in anycase why pick me out of every 1 else > i feel like a fool!



kewl jon, would like to continue this discussion about this is another post. i've made a topic about 'Keeping to the subject matter'.

PLEASE can we get back on track? Why are distributors going broke?

Answers to follow (hopefully!!)

And what are we going to do about it?>>!![/quote]

[jon connor]

>woooo there fella! i was replying to dirty bass on somthings i was trying >,there is only 1 mention of my label, there .if its is the promo below ive >put in my profile bothering you i will remove.


>my posts are genuine and im doing everthing possible for the future of >welsh techno, and vynyl for as long as it is here. i no you not gettin at >me but mark i have to stand up for wot i beleive in. and mate im well >and truly out of my box! i no my mission and where its heading, >unfortunatly the distruction of vynyl is irratating me,ive worked hard to >get to this stage im at now due to unfortunate misshaps over the years. >mabey i should just give up.in anycase why pick me out of every 1 else > i feel like a fool!

;) no probs.

kewl jon, would like to continue this discussion about this is another post. i've made a topic about 'Keeping to the subject matter'.

PLEASE can we get back on track? Why are distributors going broke?

Answers to follow (hopefully!!)

And what are we going to do about it?>>!!

[/quote]

[jon connor]

no problem mark ;)

[Ritzi Lee]

Labels - when is the last time your distributor talked to you about PROMOTION (apart from sending out 50 white labels). It's bloody obvious what the problem is. Promotion, product, place. So where is your promotion? Hmmmm... Place - internet. Product - disco bag with shitty sticker. Promotion - 50 god damn whites??????

Ehm Mark.
I'm wondering.
Do you have some kind of Publishing company and / or A&R department for your label? Arn't they the ones who need to take on the promotion activities?

[Louk]

> PLEASE can we get back on track? Why are distributors going broke?

this is a personal dig but im surprised some distributors are going broke when the owner of them manages not to pay staff on time or SEVERELY underpays staff

sorry for the negativity

Louk

[jon connor]

peoples jobs are at stake here, a whole network of vynyl industry, i see no support here from the big guns, only death.

well i hope all your distributers and people who work hard to sell your vynyl support your comments.

promotion i personaly have busted my ass to sale my label by promoting it, im not greedy, i dont want to sale a few thousand units im quite happy with a smaller amount. why coz im 100% underground dats why! i see greed here, people who have over played themselves hmmmmmm!
im trying to think of ideas to help distributers, and its working actually ive already worked my ass of to help my own.,yes mark the internet is the place for promotion and networking,and im sorry if distributers have gone under its probably the fact that they av brought it on themselves through loss of control.sending multiple free units out all over the place for a start,postal costs,etc etc etc it all has to be paid for
mabey people like you who get there post box filled with promos every week should pay a fee. lets say a membership type of thing, a small fee out of your rather large wages each year my son.to the distributer, all you big guys get it to easy, well i suppose its like footballers more succes u get the more free goodys ay!, ;)

look im not having a go at you mark, but instead of blasting all over the place vynyl is dead, cant you at least try a few things to help distributers ?
i no im gunna get shot for this post but i dont care im free to voice my opinion.
;)

now im leaving this thread to cool off! you have touched sum weak spots !
i will cum back tomorrow. i will think hard tonight of more things i can do as an artist to help my distributer ;)

[crbn]

Just thought to express my own personal opinion on things and get back to the point regarding the scene as a whole (vinyl vs cd is irrelevant compared to good vs bad music).

Ive been thinking this over the last few months and at the minute I think radio stations are the missing element. The clubs are there, the record shops are there, the labels are releasing enough stuff but the problem for me as a buyer is that Im too damn lazy to sift through the bad music to find the good tracks. Internet radio is giving me the chance to listen to lots of material while I do other things at home (ie not having to spend hours in a record shop digging crates) and most of them broadcast track info and web addresses for the tracks they play. Obviously the clubs are playing tracks but my idea of a good night out isnt leaning over the dj booth doing a bit of trainspotting.

When I look at successful scenes I think of the UK rave scene 88-92 and more recently London (DnB, Garage, Grime). Both these scenes had pirate radio stations to reach a wider audience. I really think theres no point in doing a techno/electro only pirate station as the listenership would be too small in any one area, so internet radio is the way to go (with ID3 info broadcast). Then listeners can buy directly from labels and we can wave bye bye to the distributors. PnD deals have flooded the market with sub-standard product and with the possibility of MP3 being the format in the choice in the near future, its actually going to get even more flooded. So for me, its the radio stations that will have to be the 'filter'.

Any opinions welcome...

[Tony]

Distributors are made up of wanna be musicians who don't know the first thing about buisness.

am fully in agreement, i am one of them, but i do have a lot of business knowledge in this area, and no real ego or super-id to cloud my judgement. i have just seen and heard of a lot of the reasons why many companies failed, and i have learnt to not make those same moves.

EVERYONE who is involved in this INDUSTRY should be a decent business man, even artists etc. then the frameworks that build up will be strong and not fragile because a buch of yes-men agreed to things they shouldnt have, labels didnt get complacent cos they're on a pnd, and artists dont go 'oh, i just do the music side of things'. no you dont, you all want to get paid!! you need to know your shit so people dont rip you off.

i think the people who have returned to selling vinyl are mostly solid, but still there are too many releases for the amount of people buying the tracks. some companies will still die, and new ones will surface. others will become benchmarks and wont shift for years and u will get to know them very well by the noise they make.

even if vinyl is dying, it wont be dead for 20years yet, it will take a long time, and i am thinking more and more about that point in time. but for now, STOP TYPING AND GO OUT AND BUY SOME BLOODY TECHNO :) (and i mean buy!! not blag promos!)

[jon connor]

tight control is needed, random splash marketing is not the answer, its wreckless, and foolish. the big distributions who av gone under have just got to big for there boots and paid the price. mabey its the end of record shops to, online marketing is so much more convient to people, or mabey the record shops themselves like many should go online.

already i can see this post is helping people. wikid! ;)

more gentleman`s please in distribution,

[tocsin]

I just can't believe how this thread has gone. And I'm GOBSMAKED - no, in fact totally BEWILDERED as to why no-one picked up on its true meaning. Read Tioneb's post, and the Paul Edge article. In fact I could delete the whole rest of the pages here in between and finally we might have a good discussion. But seeing as though you've alll gone of this mad mission I'll say my thoughts...


Dirty Bass is SPOT ON. Vinyl is dying, we're all a bunch of junkies just grasping at straws. This forum is about finding the future, CD is NOT the the future either. MP3 is the latest technology. Interent what we have to look at. Understand.

I've read so much crap in these last 7 pages, I'm about to explode. Who cares about old fashioned ideals and the 'old' way of running the game. Sure we'll make it last as long as we can but, we're alll about to become lonely old men. We have to move on and find a solution.

READ PAUL EDGE'S ARTICLE AGAIN. PLEASE.

Ok, then I guess I'll kinda repeat myself. For label owners, what is the objection to MP3? Is it a promotional issue? Piracy issue? What? The way I see it, especially for acid, is that the labels already have websites that people visit. If you're selling records for a buck or two, how much money is made through using vinyl in comparrison to something like MP3? Has anyone done a test with both? Given the limited run of vinyl anyways, I'd be inclined to think that more money is lost through not selling MP3s. But, that is an assumption of course. I don't even agree that vinyl is dying. I think it's already dead where I am. Record stores and distributors have been closing and I myself have not bought a record from any such locals in coming up on probably 2 years. I was the market at one point. The kid who would save up and blow all his money on $400 worth of records every month or so. Now I don't buy shit. If more labels actually had tracks I could purchase in digital format straight from a
webpage, I'd be more inclined to buy it. It would even turn the tides on piracy since, a lot of the music I have pirated, I simply cannot find as easilly as I could in the past.

So, I can see the argument for distirbutors and stores being good since there is something tangible in their hands that people can see. A file isn't the same. But since so many techno labels that are good and relatively established are all run by artist's anyways, couldn't one arguably get more exposure just by hyping the site on something like a mix CD sold or given away at gigs? Wouldn't the ability to not deal with distributors and stores greatly increase the profits of the label? If I ran a label, I would be doing a test right now rather than hanging on to one thing. For a next release, I'd do the vinyl run and also offer the songs online in MP3 format. People will save as much as probably $6-$9 through buying the songs at the site and I Would have cut out my middleman thus making a bit more. Then, one could sit back and see how much they earn from digital sales and vinyl sales combined and see if it's worth making a choice for one over the other or possibly doing both. Hell, it could even be run
like the indie label approach where you advertise the price of the songs as available directly through digital on the record itself.

[tocsin]

Sorry, I hit submit to soon as usual (I'm largely dependant on editing for boards). If online sales are working and the promotion is working, you will have a significant visual point for the music. From there it would be possible to work with other labels doing the same thing and set up your own virtual distro network that is run entirely on your terms with significantly less cost than using exclusively vinyl.

[MARKEG]

peoples jobs are at stake here, a whole network of vynyl industry, i see no support here from the big guns, only death.

well i hope all your distributers and people who work hard to sell your vynyl support your comments.

promotion i personaly have busted my ass to sale my label by promoting it, im not greedy, i dont want to sale a few thousand units im quite happy with a smaller amount. why coz im 100% underground dats why! i see greed here, people who have over played themselves hmmmmmm!
im trying to think of ideas to help distributers, and its working actually ive already worked my ass of to help my own.,yes mark the internet is the place for promotion and networking,and im sorry if distributers have gone under its probably the fact that they av brought it on themselves through loss of control.sending multiple free units out all over the place for a start,postal costs,etc etc etc it all has to be paid for
mabey people like you who get there post box filled with promos every week should pay a fee. lets say a membership type of thing, a small fee out of your rather large wages each year my son.to the distributer, all you big guys get it to easy, well i suppose its like footballers more succes u get the more free goodys ay!, ;)

look im not having a go at you mark, but instead of blasting all over the place vynyl is dead, cant you at least try a few things to help distributers ?
i no im gunna get shot for this post but i dont care im free to voice my opinion.
;)

now im leaving this thread to cool off! you have touched sum weak spots !
i will cum back tomorrow. i will think hard tonight of more things i can do as an artist to help my distributer ;)

good points but you'd be surprised how much vinyl i actually buy. everyone thinks i and alot of dj's get shit loads of vinyl, but 1/2 of it is really bad and i make sure the labels that send me stuff i don't like know about it. sure alot of labels send me stuff, but i always try to review the records, support the labels and do my bit. you know, if the labels i really loved did a dj pool and charged a fee that covered the cost of the records AND postage i would have NO problem paying it.... but i really can't see this happening as most dj's really do think they 'deserve' these records. absolute bollox. but that's the way marketing works i suppose.

[MARKEG]

Just thought to express my own personal opinion on things and get back to the point regarding the scene as a whole (vinyl vs cd is irrelevant compared to good vs bad music).

Ive been thinking this over the last few months and at the minute I think radio stations are the missing element. The clubs are there, the record shops are there, the labels are releasing enough stuff but the problem for me as a buyer is that Im too damn lazy to sift through the bad music to find the good tracks. Internet radio is giving me the chance to listen to lots of material while I do other things at home (ie not having to spend hours in a record shop digging crates) and most of them broadcast track info and web addresses for the tracks they play. Obviously the clubs are playing tracks but my idea of a good night out isnt leaning over the dj booth doing a bit of trainspotting.

When I look at successful scenes I think of the UK rave scene 88-92 and more recently London (DnB, Garage, Grime). Both these scenes had pirate radio stations to reach a wider audience. I really think theres no point in doing a techno/electro only pirate station as the listenership would be too small in any one area, so internet radio is the way to go (with ID3 info broadcast). Then listeners can buy directly from labels and we can wave bye bye to the distributors. PnD deals have flooded the market with sub-standard product and with the possibility of MP3 being the format in the choice in the near future, its actually going to get even more flooded. So for me, its the radio stations that will have to be the 'filter'.

Any opinions welcome...

Internet Radio... brilliant. For years I've tried to sort this out for Blackout but i've either run up against a technical hitch or cost issue. Last week I sorted it out and now have a station ready to go, but just need a server.

Again, cost comes into play. I really can't see many of the 'underground' sites having access to cheap servers. But every so often someone comes along that is really willing to help you for the love of the music. A bloke called Sinner put his heart and soul into helping me set this forum up. And this is such a great thing about this music - ppl are willing to help in the end. But everything is done off love and there's no hard cash involved and this is where we all slip up. We're all music ppl and we have no real promotion, or business or programming knowledge.

In the end, we have to learn everything ourselves, to make a difference. None of us have the money to put into real marketing. It's the same with distributors. It's usually a bunch of mates who get into music and really don't know the true ins and outs of business. That's why so many of them go down. And also why, perhaps, underground or new music finds it very hard to survive...

Just my thoughts...

[MARKEG]

If more labels actually had tracks I could purchase in digital format straight from a
webpage, I'd be more inclined to buy it. It would even turn the tides on piracy since, a lot of the music I have pirated, I simply cannot find as easilly as I could in the past.

This is just what I was thinking. If I could go straight to my fave label and d/l the mp3 rather than a) wait for the track to go on soulseek (not that i do this cause i dont) or b) wait for the track to come out on vinyl @ a record shop and then take 3 days in the post, then i would. It would be book marked and I'd check it out every few days.

Now this means EVERY techno label needs to get online and have an way of doing this. But to be fair, most techno labels just do not have a presence on the web, let alone have learnt how to create an mp3 download facility. This just isn't going to happen. The only way is a record shop that all the techno labels trust. But with Jetgroove showing that this is not going to be easy (anyone here trust them????!!), then I'm thinking that the techno industry is a long way off getting truly connected to the net...