How to Sell Tracks Online

Greg Curtis · 15th February 2007

I just completed a project, and the singer/songwriter/producer wants to sell the tracks off of his MySpace page. Is there an easy way for him, or me, to allow users to purchase full-res (16/44.1, in this case) copies of tracks online?

Thanks!

Greg

.

dpianomn · 16th February 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

I just completed a project, and the singer/songwriter/producer wants to sell the tracks off of his MySpace page. Is there an easy way for him, or me, to allow users to purchase full-res (16/44.1, in this case) copies of tracks online?

Thanks!

Greg

.

hi greg-
there are a lot of comanies out there that will host and handle payments for your product, but at this point i imagine you'd be hard pressed to find one that offers support for anything other than mp3 format. dave.

dpianomn · 16th February 2007

if you find one please let me know--that would be pretty awesome!

Greg Curtis · 16th February 2007

Wow. Is it a limitation of being on MySpace?

He just wants some method of electronic distribution that isn't lossy.

Thanks for the help, guys!

Greg

.

halcyo · 17th February 2007

Even the iTunes Music Store is a compressed file format. As far as I know, there aren't any places that will host paid for downloads of CD quality tracks, which is stupid, but whatever, that's the world we live in. The fact is, the audience doesn't care about 'sound quality' that much, but why should they? They like MUSIC, so if they like your MUSIC, GET IT TO 'EM!

halcyo

theblue1 · 17th February 2007

Yeah. iTunes, Napster, and many of the other stores only sell 128 kbps files (AACs at iTunes, WMAs at the rest). One exception is MusicMatch, where I believe the media is 160 kbps ABR (average bit rate as opposed to variable bit rate). Another -- key -- exception is eMusic, where the media is high-VBR LAME-encoded Mp3s (or they were when I was a subscriber way back under their insanely great all-you-can-DL-for-$15/mo plan).

One place where the artist CAN put up high rez MP3s under their own control are the pay-for accounts at www.Soundclick.com. (The free accounts allow you to put up an unlimited number of 128 kbps mp3s, up to 10 MB in size, each. The pay-for account size tops out at 40 MB/each, I think.)

The Soundclick site is a FAR superior site, site technology and infrastructure-wise, to MySpace.

While the M/S streaming player plays a noticeably degraded mp3 stream (I'm guessing 96 kbps), Soundclick's sound like a "full" 128 (for us freeloader accounts and I'm not sure of the pay-fors).

Their player is also FAR more sophisticated than the incredibly dorky M/S player. Although, like any current Flash-based player, it leaves considerable to be desired, vis a vis a regular old standalone media player like WinAmp. But it DOES let the user load all an artist's available songs and change the play order and there's a 'standalone' version that you can use while you browse elsewhere.

They also have a considerably more liberal pay-out policy than many other online venues. (You also have the ability to allow only partial streams -- which ALWAYS ticks me off, but some feel it's the tease that will get people to buy. Good luck on that. Me, it makes me think they're full of themselves and living in a dream world. But that's the music biz, for ya.)

They don't, unfortuantely, at this time, have nearly the kind of traffic as MySpace or iTunes, but as long as you can get some potential fans to your Soundclick page they are very likely to have a better experience there than the MySpace band pages.

(Also, SC has new member pages that incorporate a number of features popularized by Friendster and later adopted by the more successful copycat, MySpace.)

dpianomn · 18th February 2007

soundclick sounds pretty tasty.

stevens119 · 19th February 2007

you can download 192 kbps on soundclick for the ones you pay for. Personally I would set up a website with 16bit/44.1 files.....like a 1gb site.. put 96kbps files on there to listen to see if they want it .... then put paypal on there and a password to download the full cd version if they pay for it.

**George Necola** · 19th February 2007

tunecore.com

j351 · 19th February 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyo

The audience doesn't care about 'sound quality' that much, but why should they? They like MUSIC, so if they like your MUSIC, GET IT TO 'EM!

halcyo

He's got a valid point. Thats just the way the consumer market is at the moment - quality is sacrificed for ease of distribution. The consumer downloader wants to burn it to cd, put it on thier ipod, etc and a compressed mp3 suits the purpose.

All i can really say is get it out there no matter what the format!!!!

Tod Miner · 19th February 2007

Beatport.com sells tracks in .wav and .aiff formats.

johnjm22 · 19th February 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by George Necola

tunecore.com

I second Tunecore. I go through their service and I've been quite happy with it, although it would be nice if they could distribute to more stores.

15th February 2007	#1
Greg Curtis Lives for gear Joined: May 2006 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 1,475 Thread Starter	How to Sell Tracks Online I just completed a project, and the singer/songwriter/producer wants to sell the tracks off of his MySpace page. Is there an easy way for him, or me, to allow users to purchase full-res (16/44.1, in this case) copies of tracks online? Thanks! Greg .

17th February 2007	#6
theblue1 Gear Guru Joined: Mar 2005 Location: Long Beach, CA Posts: 15,095	Yeah. iTunes, Napster, and many of the other stores only sell 128 kbps files (AACs at iTunes, WMAs at the rest). One exception is MusicMatch, where I believe the media is 160 kbps ABR (average bit rate as opposed to variable bit rate). Another -- key -- exception is eMusic, where the media is high-VBR LAME-encoded Mp3s (or they were when I was a subscriber way back under their insanely great all-you-can-DL-for-$15/mo plan). One place where the artist CAN put up high rez MP3s under their own control are the pay-for accounts at www.Soundclick.com. (The free accounts allow you to put up an unlimited number of 128 kbps mp3s, up to 10 MB in size, each. The pay-for account size tops out at 40 MB/each, I think.) The Soundclick site is a FAR superior site, site technology and infrastructure-wise, to MySpace. While the M/S streaming player plays a noticeably degraded mp3 stream (I'm guessing 96 kbps), Soundclick's sound like a "full" 128 (for us freeloader accounts and I'm not sure of the pay-fors). Their player is also FAR more sophisticated than the incredibly dorky M/S player. Although, like any current Flash-based player, it leaves considerable to be desired, vis a vis a regular old standalone media player like WinAmp. But it DOES let the user load all an artist's available songs and change the play order and there's a 'standalone' version that you can use while you browse elsewhere. They also have a considerably more liberal pay-out policy than many other online venues. (You also have the ability to allow only partial streams -- which ALWAYS ticks me off, but some feel it's the tease that will get people to buy. Good luck on that. Me, it makes me think they're full of themselves and living in a dream world. But that's the music biz, for ya.) They don't, unfortuantely, at this time, have nearly the kind of traffic as MySpace or iTunes, but as long as you can get some potential fans to your Soundclick page they are very likely to have a better experience there than the MySpace band pages. (Also, SC has new member pages that incorporate a number of features popularized by Friendster and later adopted by the more successful copycat, MySpace.) __________________ day job \| A Year of Songs \| music and social stuff \| mutant pop on facebook \| roots acoustic on facebook

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16th February 2007	#3
dpianomn Lives for gear Joined: Jan 2006 Location: Brooklyn Posts: 774	if you find one please let me know--that would be pretty awesome!

17th February 2007	#5
halcyo Lives for gear Joined: Mar 2003 Location: Cincinnati Ohio Posts: 766 2 Reviews written	Even the iTunes Music Store is a compressed file format. As far as I know, there aren't any places that will host paid for downloads of CD quality tracks, which is stupid, but whatever, that's the world we live in. The fact is, the audience doesn't care about 'sound quality' that much, but why should they? They like MUSIC, so if they like your MUSIC, GET IT TO 'EM! halcyo

18th February 2007	#7
dpianomn Lives for gear Joined: Jan 2006 Location: Brooklyn Posts: 774	soundclick sounds pretty tasty.

19th February 2007	#8
stevens119 Lives for gear Joined: Dec 2006 Location: Nashville Posts: 1,137	you can download 192 kbps on soundclick for the ones you pay for. Personally I would set up a website with 16bit/44.1 files.....like a 1gb site.. put 96kbps files on there to listen to see if they want it .... then put paypal on there and a password to download the full cd version if they pay for it.

19th February 2007	#9
George Necola PC Moderator Joined: Mar 2005 Location: Winterthur, Switzerland Posts: 7,975 6 Reviews written	tunecore.com

19th February 2007	#11
Tod Miner Gear Head Joined: Jan 2007 Location: Chicago Posts: 66	Beatport.com sells tracks in .wav and .aiff formats.