Should New Artists Give Their Music Away Online?

Posted by Guest on May 17, 2012 in Featured, Music | 0 comments

At present, a number of new artists are struggling their way to stardom, but only a handful gets really successful. Whether on the mainstream or indie music arena, most of the newbies tend to get less attention as compared to the seasoned and established artists. Therefore, this begs the questions – should they distribute or give away their music online? This point spawns debates among the artists, music lovers and online users.

First of all, people must not perceive technology as their enemy because advancements in this field have brought many benefits. They must learn to accept changes and learn to cope with it, even use it for their own advantage.

Here are a few reasons why new artists should consider giving away samples of their music on the World Wide Web:

1. Independent music makers don’t make much money - This is because many listeners won’t spend a dime on bands they don’t know. To enable producers and more people to hear their music, they need to promote and publish some of their creations online. Remember, many popular artists like Colbie Cailliat and Justin Bieber has made their career debuts through YouTube.
2. There has been a rise of Spotify and “All You Can Eat” music services online - After the introduction of MP3, legal subscription services on music have started sprouting like mushrooms. These offer customers access to millions of tracks in their humongous music libraries. Independent and new artists can take advantage of these music subscription services to further promote their music.
3. Remember the hear-like-buy rule - Since many people won’t buy music of the unknown artist, you need to let them hear your songs before they can list them as their favorite tracks. When you give your music for free, you can allow potential fans to hear your masterpiece.

With these reasons, you may consider distributing your music online as the first step towards fame. Remember these points that could help you reach even further into your dreams:

1. Treat your music as your marketing tool - There is nothing else that you can use to popularize your music than using it in itself. You can only sell it if you are creating the kind of music that many people want to hear.
2. Make sure to recognize the value of your music - It is important that publishers, artists and writers become proud and respect the value of the musical piece they have created. If they fail to do this, how can they expect other people to recognize their craft?
3. Remember that free music equals free advertising - When you give away samples of your music for free, you are also doing yourself a huge favor by promoting your creations at no cost.

Internet Music Streaming Sites vs Old School Radio

Posted by Guest on May 3, 2012 in Featured, Music | 0 comments

As more and more people today choose access music from internet streaming sites, has music streaming finally beat the old school radio? These days, streaming music from the internet has been made a lot easier. With internet subscription on mobile devices offered at affordable prices, a lot of users using 3G or 4G mobiles would be able to stream music through their phones, ipads or other wifi-enabled gadgets. Because of this, traditional radio companies are feeling the gap growing bigger by the day.

Whether we admit it or not, iinternet music streaming sites offer better services than traditional radio stations. This is because we can listen to a wide range of music anytime and anywhere we want. Unlike when listening music from the radio, internet music streaming sites offer users with better and wide ranging music selections. Some sites even allow users to customize their playlist so they select the music that they want to hear. Moreover, listening to music through online streaming sites will ensure that you won’t ever hear annoying ads, which is very common on traditional radio stations. You can listen to music continuously without being interrupted by an ad.

Another reason for the continuous decline of radio listeners is the ability of cars to tether to smartphones. Services such as Pandora now allow car users to listen music by simply tethering to their mobile phones. How cool is that right? As listeners seek for better music services, radio stations will continue to get budget cuts and if this continues old school radio will just become a part of ancient history.

Radio stations still continue to thrive despite the popularity of internet streaming sites. So,  I think that radio won’t be completely swallowed by music streaming sites. For one, while the internet is very much accessible nowadays, there are still locations where internet connection can get really weak. So, for instance, if you are travelling to a location where only radio signals travel, you have no other choice but to listen music from your car’s radio. The same is true for people living in remote areas, where internet is pretty much non-existent. In such situations, radio would remain to be the most reliable form of entertainment no matter how ancient its technology may seem when set against internet music streaming. Furthermore, some people still like listening to the radio because most radio stations encourage listeners to interact with the DJ. They can send in their requests, chat through the radio station site, and make their greetings heard on air.

In conclusion, while internet streaming sites continue to gain popularity, there would still be those that will choose to stick to listening to their radios.

Good Alternatives To iTunes

Posted by Guest on Apr 19, 2012 in Featured, Music | 0 comments

Admit it or not, not everybody has fallen in love with iTunes. Windows users for instance find the program to be buggy and it tends to monopolize the memory or system resources. It also coerces users to organize and store the music their own way. If you are not that fond of iTunes but you still want something that will easily work with your iPod, you can find a plethora of great alternatives to the specific program.

Take a look at the following programs that you can use in place of the iTunes:

1. Foobar2000 - Built to become lightweight and to efficiently deal with huge music libraries or playlists. It is also highly customizable. The HydrogenAudio regularly updates the plug-ins and also ensures that the program is compatible with the most recent releases. Foobar is compatible with anything iTunes plays and it features Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and many others.
2. Winamp - Deemed as the “Grandfather of Windows Music Players”, Winamp is still alive and kicking these days. You can avail of the free full version and the Pro version which include the integrated iPod support.
3. MusikCube - A very lightweight and very fast program that has playback support for a number of music formats. On the downside, it doesn’t support built-in Pod management or protected iTunes music files. This is a good choice if you want something easy to use and less messy.

For Linux users, there are also some good alternatives:

1. Banshee - This one is for GNOME and is designed as a replacement Windows Media Player or iTunes by making ripping, burning and playback much easier. Banshee also has iPod support and it has a good interface.
2. Amarok - Based on KDE but this was released independently. It is perfect for playing back various audio formats and managing huge music libraries. This has a built-in iPod support and works with iPods loaded with Rockbox.

iTunes is the best music player for Mac OS, but you can have other good options when it comes to audio programs such as the following:

1. Play - A lighter version of iTunes and it deals with search tagging and music management.
2. Cog - A music player like the Audion and Winamp but it doesn’t manage music.

Other good alternatives to iTunes include:

1. CopyTrans Manager - A free app that allows you to transfer songs from the computer to an iPod, iPhone or iPod Touch.
2. MediaMonkey - Avail of the free standard version or the Gold Version which needs a license. This lets you manage your iPod without any additional add-ons. It also plays a wide selection of music formats like MP3, FLAC, APE, AAC and others.

Why The Music Industry Hates Selling Music Online

Posted by Guest on Apr 5, 2012 in Featured, Music | 0 comments

While the music industry is slowly warming up to the idea of selling music online, there are still a few who dislike it. One reason for this is because they feel that the internet has given pirates the perfect platform to share music illegally. Because music is widely shared online, most for free, composers, singers, and music companies are losing a lot of money. Therefore, you can’t really blame them for hating the internet. In addition to that, legal online stores such as iTunes sell music at a very low price. Because of this, people now choose to acquire music online than to purchase albums of their favorite artists on DVD or CD format. Why would you spend more if you can actually purchase a whole album or a single song online for a cheaper price right? As such, the music industry has been losing significant amount of money because of the wide availability of free and cheap music downloads on the internet.

But if only music companies would see the internet on a different light they will realize that they can actually leverage from it. Instead of moping for lost sales, why not rise up to the challenge? It would be really hard to fight piracy so rather than complain they should re-evaluate their marketing strategy. They should maximize the marketing convenience provided by the internet. Instead of producing albums on CDs or DVDs, which as I see it will become obsolete in the near future, deciding to sell music online won’t be such a bad idea. They will be able to cut down their overheads significantly while being able to boost their profits. In addition, since music sold online are way cheaper, more people would be encouraged to buy from legal music stores to support their favorite artists and to help in the fight against piracy.

Even though there are still music artists who are having a hard time grasping the idea of selling music online, some are forced to conform to the changing trends, and thus allowing them to see the internet as a good friend rather than a foe. However, despite this, illegal selling and downloading of music cannot be stopped. Even experts have come up with the conclusion that piracy is impossible to be completely eliminated. As long as there are people who are willing to patronize illegal music downloads pirates will continue to share music illegally.

Due to the twisted thinking of some people and their desire to earn money even through illegal means, we cannot really blame the music industry for not fully embracing online music selling. Piracy can hurt not only the artist but everyone involved in the album creation. As album sales continue to go down, music companies can only hope for the best. In fact a lot small music companies have closed down since people, these days, chose to download a single music online rather than buying a complete album. The best way for the music industry to cover their losses is to finally embrace the trend and create better ties with online technology. By doing this will they be able to finally move forward.

A Common Sense Approach to Selling Music in the Internet World

Posted by Guest on Mar 22, 2012 in Featured, Music, Music Selling Online | 0 comments

Many established and novice musicians earn money from the rights to their smash albums and hit songs that sell like hotcakes at record stores. But independent music artists have a different fate. Money may come in slowly or not at all, depending on their marketing tactics and strategies. In these modern times, the Internet has become a very powerful tool for independent music makers to gain more profits from their musical masterpieces. Resources are widely available online and they maximize these to promote and sell their stuff.

If you are a new independent artist who dreams of becoming rich and famous one of these days, here are some useful tips that you can apply to sell your music to a greater number of audience.

1. Use indie music sources available online - If you dedicate time to find all the resources available in the World Wide Web, you will find that you can use a myriad of ways to make your music known. Websites, online radio, online music stores, chat rooms and other online communities have great potential in marketing your music.
2. Consider selling MP3 downloads of your music - By doing this, you can broadcast your music without spending a lot. Offer your MP3 downloads at a reasonable price and see how fast music lovers will avail of your pieces.
3. Take note of the important lessons that you can get from other successful musicians selling their masterpieces online - Enhance your selling experience by taking some tips from other artists and try to avoid their mistakes on your own business. You can read various articles, listen or watch interviews to pick up some tactics and strategies they use to perform well in online music trade.
4. Make sure you have a good understanding about how the music industry works - Find out the latest trends and know what the audience wants to be able to create songs that are appealing to the people.
5. Have your music registered and copyrighted - This will serve as protection to your pieces and will prevent cyber squatters from meddling with your property.
6. Record your own demo copy or ask someone to do it for you - Many of the popular artists of today had their demo published online. So make sure to make your own demo and allow producers to hear your material.

There is no doubt that the World Wide Web is literally a huge pool of music listeners and creators. Of course, you can never avoid competition so you need to create your music very well to keep up with it. Also, coming up with effective online marketing strategies will help you to sell your music fast online.