Should you give your music away ?

[davethedrummer]

Something Mark Hawkins said in another post really rang a bell in my head
and I'm now thinking about just giving away my music for free.
I mean f^ck it, If the sales are crap anyway, why not just give it away ?
at least more people will hear it and maybe more gigs will come out of it.

thoughts ?

[DannyBlack]

good topic, Henry.


Right. I personally came in at the wrong time to make money from music so I'm not going to delude myself into thinking I ever will. If someone likes a track and wants to release it, any money (if any) it makes they can put it into the label and thats how I like it. I never wanted this to be about money for me.

Again thats my personal view of how I want things to work for me. I have my other career to keep me in pence. That is, when I'm qualified etc...

This is the only side of it I know.

I think nowadays it is more performance orientated than say putting out CD's. The money to sustain what you do would come from shows that you put on (audio/visual)

If you want to make money from music, you have to be clever about it. Techno, whether we like it or not is an underground thing that will never enjoy any real commercial success. Im not saying make minimal- make other things, work on concepts- marketing stratergies. thats what business is- advertising and marketing and being bloody clever.

im not sure where i was heading with this- am i making sense?

[a X cell]

I want to read more about this subject.
Seriously, I'm going pretty much everywhere to find some label to release an EP I worked hard on. And personally, the goal within this is just to get my music listened at, not getting money out of it (altough it would be pleasing since studies cost a lot these days but let's be realist, who the f*** would buy some song from some newcomer they never heard of?).
Should I stop sending CDs to labels and come over and give my music for free? =S

[qUE]

Depends on your overheads. If you're filthy rich, why not? But if you're not and you've had to shell out for vinyl pressing, distribution and bacon sandwiches, then you should at least try and recoup that money. Well that's my theory anyway :)

[DannyBlack]

I would agree. The advent of digital has brought about a bigger amount of piracy though. We have traktor now so there is no need for us to shell out for vinyl. Don't get me wrong though, I still pay for my music- but there are countless amounts of forums with the tracks up on Rapidshare.

[morbid]

For someone of your calibre I can only see you gaining.

No disrespect to you.... but

Before the digital thing came along I used to buy up all your vinyl releases, hydraulix, boscaland, routemaster etc etc. there was no other way to get hold of your music.

Nowadays I wouldnt pay for one of your digital releases, not because its not worth anything but because theres so much else out there that I dont have to pay for.

I spend a minimum of about 2 hours a day listening to new music and I haven't bought a CD or record for over 3 years. I have hard drives full of quality stuff that I haven't even got round to listening to through rapidshare or netlabels. Im not saying its the right thing to do (not paying for music) but its the way things have become. In rare cases if I like the free stuff I do download the album or whatever but in terms of revenue I dont think its about the music anymore, its about the name and the brand and the performance.

I wouldn't pick up a mutate to survive on digital if I had to pay for it. I would definately download if it was free.

Do you gain from this - I don't know. Your music becomes more accesible to a wider target audience providing you centralise your distribution of the freebies. ie. all digital releases availble for free at (www.) davethedrummer.com. as Mark does. That way you can track who is downloading your music. You don't gain financially but you gain a better perspective of where your music is popular giving you ideas about where to market your DJ / Live performances better.

[BloodStar]

givin your music away for free will definitelly give you back your artistic freedom, and as you are not earning money from sales, cause they are shite as you said, then you wont looose much.

i guess if you will be smart while advertising your free releases, you can find new audience and build new fanbase. Then you can back it up with some clever merchandising, and you are profiting. Not financially, but in other ways. Last but not least, musical wise your artistic fredom won't be limited by labels, which regardless money, will be the biggest benefit for yourself, imo.

[davethedrummer]

Interesting points so far
I get that point about wanting it but not paying for it.
that was marks point exactly, and he said that as soon as he put his stuff up free it really started moving.
I gues the thing to do is ask if it has made any difference in any other areas of marks working life.
like has he got more paid work from it ?
because at the end of the day tracks take time to make, good or bad tracks
and you can't spend your entire life making tracks for nothing , it's just not possible.
unless you want to starve to death in your studio.

an to A X Cell yeah mate , I would just give it away if your very new to the scene
just to get an idea of an audience reaction.
forget the record deal idea for now, record labels are mostly crap anyway these days.

[DannyBlack]

On one hand, they way things have gone is complete minge, but on the other hand it is pretty healthy. Now is the time to start brain storming on new ideas and ways to run with music.

ps I sent you a PM on sound cloud H, about your dubstep tune.

[Jay Pace]

Do a radiohead - give it away for free, but with a donation attached. Then everyone who feels like paying can, and you can track all the downloads, know how many people got hold of it and you'll probably get more than the 12p a track thats leftover after everyone and their dog has taken an percentage cut.

Radiohead made much more money as well, giving stuff away. They didn't have to pay anyone to distribute, a zillion people got their album and they got paid much more for their work than normal.

I think its a great strategy.

[morbid]

Do a radiohead - give it away for free, but with a donation attached. Then everyone who feels like paying can, and you can track all the downloads, know how many people got hold of it and you'll probably get more than the 12p a track thats leftover after everyone and their dog has taken an percentage cut.

Radiohead made much more money as well, giving stuff away. They didn't have to pay anyone to distribute, a zillion people got their album and they got paid much more for their work than normal.

I think its a great strategy.

spot on - like I said I wouldn't pay for a mutate to survive release even though I like them - let me download them all as 320's or WAV and I would bung a quid or two by paypal no problem.

Or the Hydraulix complete back catalogue - thats gotta be worth at least a fiver. :)

[davethedrummer]

spot on - like I said I wouldn't pay for a mutate to survive release even though I like them - let me download them all as 320's or WAV and I would bung a quid or two by paypal no problem.

Or the Hydraulix complete back catalogue - thats gotta be worth at least a fiver. :)

yeah maybe that's the way
cos if there's a lot more people like you thinking the same thing
I could bung my stuff up with a donation button make a few quid , you all get tracks for dirt cheap
and we're all happy

aren't we ?......

[DannyBlack]

Absolutely. I steal software, I'm not gonna try and deny it. Music, I won't steal. I have only just started on the digital path due to the advent of Traktor.

The option to donate is class I think. And I'm pretty sure people would have the respect to do so. Id hope they would. Plus you don't need to pay distro.

[DannyBlack]

I was just thinking- what are the benefits of having your music on Juno and the likes? The mailing list. So if you choose to do the donation thing, make sure people are put on a mailing list- for releases etc.

[SlavikSvensk]

to be devil's advocate, if more and more people give their music away for free, then there will be fewer and fewer labels. not zero labels, but fewer, as people naturally like filtering mechanisms and labels are exactly that. this could, ironically, have the effect of concentrating more power in fewer hands.

[DannyBlack]

I agree to a certain extent. I think what is killing labels anyway is the fact that you can choose the tracks you want to buy from the EP rather than buying the whole EP. personally I don't like that.

[SlavikSvensk]

well, what's happening is that labels below a certain threshold of popularity are dying. minus, ostgut, ghostly, cocoon, etc. are not dying; they're doing quite well.

that means that the as the means of creating and distributing techno has democratized, the ability to be compensated for making it has gone in the opposite direction. you have to be part of the 'aristocracy' to make money off releases.

that's a good reason for someone to want to give their music away, but i think if that got really widespread quickly, if would just further the above trend.

i like the idea of giving some music away, and supporting labels with other music. like when dr. schmidt gave that electro track away. i had no idea who he was, but now i do. i will listen to his tracks on juno, beatport, etc. now.

[DannyBlack]

+1. What you're saying is a fact. To make money you need to have got your roots dug in before the digital explosion. Before music was easier to make in your home and before the decline of vinyl/rise of digital.

To be honest, I see more success by venturing away from Juno, BeatPort and the others. But and this is a big But; you need to play it clever. Decide on what is free and what isn't. Check out your key demographic, their WIN's (Wants, Interests and Needs) and to a certain extent cater to them a bit more.

Maybe I'm rambling a bit here, I may write a big thing about it later. Techno is a product and as such, should be marketed like one.

[wrong]

Good thread!
I've been running my label for 10 years now and for the last few years although sometimes it might make a little money (mainly with the represses), it pretty much just sustains itself so it's not like i profit from it anyway, if i could press vinyl and give it away for free without losing money then i would, but obviously that's not possible..
I'd completely go the route of giving the ep's away for free as i'm sure it would reach a larger audience (maybe) except for the fact that it would mean going digital only and i do love me vinyl...
I'm sure the day is looming when it will become almost impossible for smaller labels to release vinyl but i'm clinging on to the edge of that cliff by my fingernails waiting for the big man to stamp on my hands .. and i have to say, enjoying the suspense ...

[a X cell]

I took this question out of BOA to talk about it on some boards. I got some interesting answers.

Those are all good possibilities. However, I think this is the kind of thing that will work best for established artists with a dedicated fanbase, which is the case for both Radiohead and NIN. This probably won't do much for relatively unknown up-and-comers. Word of a "free" Radiohead or NIN album spreads like wildfire in all kinds of media. Word of a free Omni or {insert relatively unknown producer here} album probably won't get that much exposure.

While I am all about digital distribution (and even free music sharing to some extent), I can also see one of the downsides of it today. Music today, being either dirt-cheap or freely available (through legal or illegal means), has become a disposable commodity. Today, the "life expectancy" of a good electronic dance music track has dropped significantly from a few months to a few weeks. I think that the price of music, while not being the only factor, has something to do with it. Back when I was playing only vynil, paying 15$ for a track + B-side, that track could remain in my crate for months and sometimes one or two years if I really thought it was awesome. These days, with the same budget and the quantity of music coming out, a good track is often only played a few weeks. There are a lot of aspects to "this problem", but I believe that putting a price on your music, for some reason, seems to give it more value to a lot of people. That is unfortunately the way things are today.

That leads me to a question I ask myself.
We all talk about NIN/Radiohead/Electro right now for this matter. Let's get to the point : this is pretty much easier to get your music known by any means (free or not) when you're already established.

Let's take my case. I'm making some Experimental 135bpm-ish Techno. The only labels I could release on are : Naked Lunch AND Impact Mechanics since it's pretty much the sound that looks like mine. Unfortunately, I get no news for them since... I'm a no-name into this ocean of no-name who postulates for the label. So yeah, what to do now?

1. Give away my music for free but at the same time, struggling on publicity since the internet is fulfilled by music made in an hour by a 12 years old boy (been there, done that) or else, not getting that much of attention like Omni said.

2. Keep sending demos of my EP to labels... but which ones?

Your opinion on this one?