Who do you use for your music distribution?

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
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EnochLight
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29 Mar 2018

I use TuneCore, and just discovered that they consider a single "1 song". That's bullshit, as iTunes and pretty much everyone else considers a single 1-3 songs (because back in the day, singles had a goddamn B-side).

Meanwhile, TuneCore wants to charge me $50 to release a single with 2 tracks (which is the same price as an album). And if I want to include a digital booklet - that's another $20 (bringing the TuneCore cost for a single that has 2 tracks + booklet to $70 USD)!!!

Anyone know of any cheaper options?
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QVprod
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30 Mar 2018

A single has meant 1 song for quite a while now. That aside I personally used CD Baby for my single I put out a year ago. An artist I produce used CD baby for her project as well. I don't know if booklets are possible, but what I prefer about them over Tunecore is no expensive yearly fee with the caveat of CD Baby taking a small percentage of sales. Distrokid is also pretty good and is endorsed by the founders of both CD Baby and Tunecore, however if you happen to care about your music being on Shazam, the then cheap $20 yearly fee starts accumulating to a substantial one after while as they charge an additional $1 per song per year.

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EnochLight
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30 Mar 2018

QVprod wrote:
30 Mar 2018
A single has meant 1 song for quite a while now. That aside I personally used CD Baby for my single I put out a year ago. An artist I produce used CD baby for her project as well. I don't know if booklets are possible, but what I prefer about them over Tunecore is no expensive yearly fee with the caveat of CD Baby taking a small percentage of sales. Distrokid is also pretty good and is endorsed by the founders of both CD Baby and Tunecore, however if you happen to care about your music being on Shazam, the then cheap $20 yearly fee starts accumulating to a substantial one after while as they charge an additional $1 per song per year.
CD Baby can't do digital booklets? I'm not averse to switching from TuneCore to CD Baby, but keeping my releases aligned with my band name might be an administrative nightmare.
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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QVprod
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30 Mar 2018

No that shouldn't be an issue. The only thing would be the length of time and expense to switch distributors if you intend to move your whole catalog. You can use the same band name with as many distributors as you want, just can't have two companies distribute the same songs simultaneously.

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dioxide
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11 Apr 2018

There's always Bandcamp

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EnochLight
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11 Apr 2018

Thanks. I stuck with TuneCore, as I already had 2 other releases long in circulation with them, and I like their service. Anyway, I figured out my digital booklet woes, got it fixed, and it's up in iTunes (among other places) as of today. WHEW!

Glad that's over!
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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fieldframe
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11 Apr 2018

I used Catapult (https://www.catapultdistribution.com) for my last album, but the only thing really going for them is lack of recurring fees. I got into Stem (https://www.stem.is) for my upcoming album: You have to apply to Stem, but if I got in it can't be too hard. :)

You might also want to check out Amuse. (http://amuse.io) It's an oddball for the reason that it's completely free (really!) and that quite weirdly, you can only submit through the mobile app (although you would have your masters on Dropbox or Google Drive).

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kuhliloach
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11 Apr 2018

The only website that seems worthy for buying and selling music is Bandcamp. Purchases allow streaming via the Bandcamp app and can also be downloaded as lossless drm-free files. It seems to cut out the fat from the entire system unlike places like Spotify that go by the saying "The artist shant make money."

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QVprod
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11 Apr 2018

kuhliloach wrote:
11 Apr 2018
The only website that seems worthy for buying and selling music is Bandcamp. Purchases allow streaming via the Bandcamp app and can also be downloaded as lossless drm-free files. It seems to cut out the fat from the entire system unlike places like Spotify that go by the saying "The artist shant make money."
There are others that have a similar model like Nimbit. Only issue is getting potential fans to actually buy from those sites since they're musican focused and not consumer focused. While Spotify sucks for musicians, it's great for consumers.

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wendylou
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11 Apr 2018

EnochLight wrote:
30 Mar 2018
QVprod wrote:
30 Mar 2018
A single has meant 1 song for quite a while now. That aside I personally used CD Baby for my single I put out a year ago. An artist I produce used CD baby for her project as well. I don't know if booklets are possible, but what I prefer about them over Tunecore is no expensive yearly fee with the caveat of CD Baby taking a small percentage of sales. Distrokid is also pretty good and is endorsed by the founders of both CD Baby and Tunecore, however if you happen to care about your music being on Shazam, the then cheap $20 yearly fee starts accumulating to a substantial one after while as they charge an additional $1 per song per year.
CD Baby can't do digital booklets? I'm not averse to switching from TuneCore to CD Baby, but keeping my releases aligned with my band name might be an administrative nightmare.
You can manage band names and members in CD Baby, as well as featured singers per track. I, too, once used TuneCore, but the renewal fees drove me to CD Baby, where I pay only once. I chose the "Pro" packages to manage royalties, handle sync licensing, and a bunch of other features. It's more expensive but pay it and be done.
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stekme
Posts: 29
Joined: 19 Sep 2017

26 Apr 2018

Label-worx
No payments, only commission from sales
You must create business plan on your releases on 2 years (just write 1 album at 1st year, 1 in second, in this year one ep few singles)... at registration form
They registered labels not just musicians, but it’s only check of your plans to make any releases in future and you can not release them ..
It’s big company with big quantity of stores.
Payouts only from 50 founts, have active promotion

RobC
Posts: 1833
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

26 Apr 2018

I use nothing, because I feel nobody would buy music anyway. xD

Sean McCauley
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Joined: 22 Aug 2019

22 Aug 2019

I'm totally biased because I work as a writer in the industry, but Octiive is new and pretty great. They have a pay-as-you-go option now I think people should be paying more attention to. I think it's way better than DistroKid's legacy option, which is like 50 bucks to keep them from taking your music down if you unsubscribe.

Copypasta from Octiive.com: $ 7.99
one-time
Pay As You Go
• No Annual Payment
• Keep 92% Of Your Royalties

• $7.99 Per Song – OR – $17.99 Per Album

Cheers guys.

-S

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gullum
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23 Aug 2019

I used amuse.io for the 3 releases (singles) I've released this year and I like them. it is free and that is great for me because I never get enough sale or streams to justify a paying model :D

PhillipOrdonez
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23 Aug 2019

I've used routenote, I like it, it is free, they take a cut from your sales/streams. They have a paying option as well.

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fieldframe
RE Developer
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23 Aug 2019

I used Stem for my last album. They were great, with no setup cost, no annual fees, and a small cut… and then they changed their business model and cut off the bottom ~90% of artists. To add insult to injury, they also offered an easy migration path to TuneCore, which they probably only did for the referral kickbacks from TuneCore’s crappy annual pricing model.

Anyway, I found a new distributor from this excellent guide maintained by Ari Herstand: https://aristake.com/post/cd-baby-tunec ... imbalam-or I ended up going with Soundrop, but you might find a different one best suits your particular needs.

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Last Alternative
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27 Aug 2019

Sony Music & Red Scorpion Records 🎼🎶🦂
https://lastalternative.bandcamp.com
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luke
Posts: 1
Joined: 28 Oct 2019

28 Oct 2019

After many years I had the chance to try many music distributors, below is my experience with some of them.

Amadea, these guys do everything they say on the website, be careful on making sure all metadata is correct or they will kick you out.
Also the payments do not reflect exactly what you make, example If you make $100 they say they take 10%, not thru, they take 50%, yep.
Over all good and the dashboard is good! No so good on payment. Fast custom service!

LANDR distribution, stay the fuck away from these people, the website says after you pay for the year subscription you have access to amazing things and you can get your money back if you cancel. Let me tell you, this service is good for releasing a few songs a year. I used it to release albums and its full of glitches, the dashboard it's terrible. You will not get your money back unless you call your credit card company. Custom service is bad, they use the auto reply and you have to wait to talk to someone for days or weeks. STAY AWAY.

Symphonic, awesome dashboard! Make sure your metadata is correct, if not they will remove stores from your dashboard and they will charge a stiff fee to take a song down but, they pay your royalties and they are accurate and on time. If you have a question or issue, they will reply fast!

Routenote, Dashboard is full of glitches and are slow to reply back. It's good for releasing a few songs, if you do many albums its slow and finds copyright content in your songs and they are not accurate about this. Over all Good, not had enough time to see if they pay appropriately. Custom service is slow, you will have to wait days to get an reply.

All other not listed here are ok for artists that release a few songs a year. After you pay for your subscription, you will never see a dollar. All claim that you have access to the daily stats, downloads and streamings, but they are not accurate.

I will get back to post more has soon as I get more data from payments to Custom service etc.

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

29 Oct 2019

Would be Patreon also an option? I think their not taking too much percentage of your sales but the whole promotion would be on your side, like using YouTube, websites, social profiles like drooble, Facebook or such...

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Oquasec
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29 Oct 2019

Why not just use distrokid and call it a day?
Producer/Programmer.
Reason, FLS and Cubase NFR user.

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EnochLight
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29 Oct 2019

Oquasec wrote:
29 Oct 2019
Why not just use distrokid and call it a day?
Why not buy a Ford instead of a GM or Chrysler and call it a day?

The answer is: because there are choices.
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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motuscott
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29 Oct 2019

I burn my tunes to a floppy disc and bury it under a rock off the Jersey turnpike.
Fees are reasonable...
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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EnochLight
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29 Oct 2019

motuscott wrote:
29 Oct 2019
I burn my tunes to a floppy disc and bury it under a rock off the Jersey turnpike.
Fees are reasonable...
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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Kalm
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Location: Austin
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29 Oct 2019

CD Baby, they just seem hassle free and I worked the conference they just had lol
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Faastwalker
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Location: NSW, Australia

30 Oct 2019

Never used any! I didn't realise there were so many options out there. I probably would have gone straight to BandCamp in my ignorance. CD Baby sounds good. They state they get stuff out on a large number of streaming sites. How does this work?

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