Tunecore beta released

[nativeaudio]

Thanks again...

So to register a small label right now, one would need to register several times, once for each band?

Or put the label name under First/Last name?

[rici]

is there already a album on i-tunes witch was uploaded thru tunecore?
//
michael

[PeterTuneCore]

Exactly, Native Audio. Register for each band. That's why we kept the process clean and simple.

--Peter

[PeterTuneCore]

Hey Michael,

Yes! Our first customer, Frank Black, is already up.

Check out his new album. That's TuneCore's first album delivered. Didn't take long, either.

--Peter

[rici]

Originally Posted by PeterTuneCore

Hey Michael,

Yes! Our first customer, Frank Black, is already up.

Check out his new album. That's TuneCore's first album delivered. Didn't take long, either.

--Peter

hi peter
thats great!
few days ago i have posted 3 albums of my project "zofka". cant wait to see it on i-tunes.
thank you for providing us this great and innovative service!

michael

//
http://www.zofka.tv http://www.ricar.ch

[nativeaudio]

Originally Posted by PeterTuneCore

Exactly, Native Audio. Register for each band. That's why we kept the process clean and simple.

--Peter

Thanks for the reply!

In the future, I guess not needing to log in and out with different usernames and passwords (I guess this is needed with different accounts?) is a better solution.

In one way or the other Apple must have a solution for labels, even if the songs are not searchable pr. label in iTunes, because I'm pretty sure the big labels out there don't need one user account with Apple pr. artist?

I assume that with Tunecore, Tunecore takes the place of the label in Apple's hierarchy... maybe they could have an additional sublabel-function in the future, meaning that one could register as a label with Tunecore, and get one payment/one list containing sales reports for the different artists. I hope they will do this, because in my opinion, the tunecore solution is much better than having to wait for a deal with a record label.

Plus, it gives the artist or small lavels the freedom to choose promotors independent on which distribution channels (in this case, iTunes) they are using.

[nativeaudio]

I've heard that with iTunes, Apple is paying the royalties (BMI etc), and not the record labes. Is this the case when going through TuneCore as well?

[SLW]

sorry for "reopening" the thread.


how do you handle international artists / labels?
is there a possibility?

do you also publish on other platforms than itunes? napster comes to my mind. or the german "musicload".... im really interested. you website is down for maintence. so ill maybe get that info in the next days.

In germany you would need my ISRC + Labelcode + EAN (you guys have a different name for it), to give itunes my songs so that the MCS/Harrison(?) (in germany it the "gema" i dont know whos collection the money over there) can identify it with my songs and repayment of royalties. What do you need to publish it (ISRC for sure!)?

thank you very much for the answer

Stephan

[PeterTuneCore]

Hey Stephan,

Thanks, but you're right, most of the answers to your questions are on our FAQ. Give us another 24 hours to finish our repairs (the server broke, the actual hardware failed).

Then check it out. Anything I can answer after that, feel free to write me.

Thanks!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[theother]

This sounds like a great concept!

I think it could be a great place for talent scouts and pluggers to get in touch with artist's they like to promote things further.

I will certainly try this service in the future.

It would be great if your received-royalties get converted directly to the currency the client's account is in.

So ie I'm fromt he UK and have a £ (Pound Sterling) bank-account. If I receive payments from Europe in Euro and Japan in Yen, it would be stupid to convert to $ first and then to British Pound.

I'm sure this is something that can be refined in the future.

[nativeaudio]

Anything new regarding TuneCore - any happy users out there?

[Jens]

It works Great! Uploaded my first Album late June..It was online just before August.
Got my first statement 15th of October..Either you paypal it or get a check..
Next album will be uploaded during the next couple of days.

Also, try out the itunes link maker (google it) It embeds a purchase button into your bandsite.

/Jens

[jkamata]

wow must have been sleeping!! this post just made my day..good and interesting reading.

thanx

[jazzy655]

yo guys, i found this interview with one of the founders of tunecore. i uploaded it to my server, so you guys could check it out.
http://www.somobe.com/tunecore.mp3

gotta say, it sounds like a really great service. almost scary if it works, cause there is gonna be a lot of
really bad music on itunes.

hey peter, i have a question, do the distributors have veto power for what is "up to par" quality wise?
in other words, can they reject an artist that they think flat out sucks?

thanks for any info man, i really need this to work, cause our album comes out in Feb 07!!!

[jomo1234]

They won't reject a song if it 'sucks'....'sucks' according to whom? If that was the case, why does Paris Hilton have her music up there? There's a ton of awful music up on Itunes already, but that is simply my opinion.

Originally Posted by jazzy655

yo guys, i found this interview with one of the founders of tunecore. i uploaded it to my server, so you guys could check it out.
http://www.somobe.com/tunecore.mp3

gotta say, it sounds like a really great service. almost scary if it works, cause there is gonna be a lot of
really bad music on itunes.

hey peter, i have a question, do the distributors have veto power for what is "up to par" quality wise?
in other words, can they reject an artist that they think flat out sucks?

thanks for any info man, i really need this to work, cause our album comes out in Feb 07!!!

[T_R_S]

I decided as a business move for my studio to set up digital ditribution for my clients who record at our studio. I provide this service free of any annual or set up fee's.
I wanted to do something to help clients who record with us. Plus it's something that a smaller project studio may not be able to do as well.

[~ufo~]

I entered my band's album ( *SOFA* - All This Love )via tunecore thing a while ago, I guess it's been about two months now.

nothing up on iTunes yet, as far as I can see. (fingers crossed)

it IS up on Napster and rhapsody so far though.

it's supposed to go up on eMusic too
but I can't access that since I have account nor credit card to set one up.
can't find it on Sony's Connect or Musicnet yet either.

I entered it for the following iTunes regions: US, Australia, Canada, UK, EU, Japan... see what happens over the next few weeks.

anyone else have experience with the tunecore service?

for the record, there were a few issues w/ my uploading process but all of them were amply taken care off by the tunecore staff

[djbrough]

I read the FAQ on tunecore, but what I still don't understand is how Tunecore's collections affect ASCAP and BMI. As an ASCAP memeber, I don't want to get in trouble by conflict of interest in that area. Can someone from Tuncore elaborate on this please?

[Jens]

Originally Posted by djbrough

I read the FAQ on tunecore, but what I still don't understand is how Tunecore's collections affect ASCAP and BMI. As an ASCAP memeber, I don't want to get in trouble by conflict of interest in that area. Can someone from Tuncore elaborate on this please?

From what I understand it's up to iTunes to pay the mechanicals.

/Jens

[C_F_H_13]

I put up a band I worked with on November 28th ( Over The Coals - Declaration). I'm happy to say that it was available on Itunes (usa and canada) as of yesterday, almost a full month earlier then the estimated release date!!! Nice work guys. One question though...who edits the 30 second previews? Whoever did mine did an awesome job! Most previews on itunes are like the worst part of songs or part of a long intro to a song, but ours were done really well!!

Nice work guys!

[doug_hti]

Originally Posted by Jens

From what I understand it's up to iTunes to pay the mechanicals.

/Jens

no it is NOT up to ITunes to pay mechanicals. It's up to the label.



For what it is and who it services and in terms of ease, efficiency, great support and response, tunecore is fantastic and I would highly reccomend them.

[xist]

Originally Posted by C_F_H_13

One question though...who edits the 30 second previews? Whoever did mine did an awesome job! Most previews on itunes are like the worst part of songs or part of a long intro to a song, but ours were done really well!!

That's interesting. I always thought you just hear the first 30 seconds on the ITMS...

Well, I did not use it much til now, and probably all the previews I've listened to were made in that way.
I'd be curious to know more on how Tunecore approaches this 30 secs thing....

[xist]

Originally Posted by xist

I'd be curious to know more on how Tunecore approaches this 30 secs thing....

anyone?

[PeterTuneCore]

Forget to log in for a while and so many posts pop up! Sorry about that, folks, just busy.

JAZZY and JOMO: The stores all have the right to reject, but so far, NONE of them have ever used it. Not once, in THOUSANDS of albums. Sometimes there's a tech problem, or they need new cover art, or bad audio, but fixing these gets the albums up no problem. So I have no way to answer you: seems none of the stores have yet to encounter music SO BAD they won't take it. Okay, fine by me! Let the market decide, I say. If it sells, great, if not, what's the harm? Digital shelves are infinitely long and require no dusting.

UFO: If things aren't moving, just write support@tunecore.com and I or one of the crew will help you out. Are you up yet? What's your album number? Talk to us, we're always here!

THE ASCAP/BMI issue: Well, remember ASCAP/BMI, SESAC, all those guys, are about PERFORMANCE, and digital distribution is about DPD, more concerned with publishing. Of course, there are mechanicals, and it's true, in the U.S. and Canada, it's up to the labels to take care of that, so no TuneCore impact at all. Outside of North America things get more complicated, with many countries requiring the stores directly pay collection services. But again, that's not a TuneCore impact.

THE 30 SECONDS THING: Although iTunes does have the ability to shift this, it's almost impossible to get them to do it, so it defaults to the SECOND SET of 30 seconds in the song. That is, from time 0:30 to time 0:59. If the song is less than a minute, there is no sample.

There's a zillion things taking away my attention, so I don't get to make the rounds of boards as much as I want. So if y'all have any questions, just write info@tunecore.com and we'll help!

Thanks for all the support, you gear maniacs. Keep making music!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[Crandall1]

I have to say the couple of royalty posts in this thread got me chuckling. The first ASCAP one was the equivalent of saying "if I drink this coffee, will it sound like puppies?" As Peter said, ASCAP/BMI/SESAC is performance royalties. Mechanical royalties (what I assume you're talking about) are payed by the label to the publisher, who in turn pays the songwriter. Artist royalties are payed by the label to the person that recorded the song. (Or not, as is the case 99% of the time.)

In any event, I uploaded an album to Tunecore right about Christmas, and it was in _every_ service I checked (including all the iTunes) by March 15th. This is not Tunecore's fault. I would assume they send it to iTunes as the same time they send it to every other service; iTunes is just slow when it's not coming from a major (i.e. a potential advertiser. Go figure.)

The accounting is accurate and much nicer than CD Baby's. If you have to pay mechanicals, it's almost impossible to parse out what the hell is going on from CD Baby's digital distro info; Tunecore's is much more obvious, and easier to deal with in that regard. Speaking as a label, it's a much nicer service to use, and we'll be using it exclusively for our digital distro from now on.

[SusieB]

I am shocked that people on this forum are in favour of tunecore.
It took us around 3 months to get onto sites and when we did it was wrong on iTunes.
We currently release through Ditto Music, Ditto Music || Super Site who do hundreds of sites that arent just UK based. We are also chart eligible through them and got a fixed release date.
Their base package is £25 which includes iTunes, Amazon and around 100 other sites, also 0% commission.
Have also used CDbaby in the past who gave good customer service but
take commission and mostly distribute to US sites.
S
x

[Saudade]

Wow I checked out Ditto's site and it distributes to about 600 stores.

hmmm...but does that mean it will benefit me as a musician? The majors tried to tilt the playing field by limiting non-DRM downloads to only Amazonmp3. But almost a year later, iTunes is still 70% of the download market.

All I can say is I've checked out almost every (non-obscure) store, their T&C, and the $ they pay back to the musician. 99.9% of them are rip-offs. They sell your music as part of discount bundles and throw you a few cents a month on your pan like you are some beggar. You have no right to tell them what price to sell your music at, and they can decide anytime to give away your music for free as "promo" packages fuuck

Musicians: if you think your hardwork means more than that, at least distribute it to stores that serves your dignity even if not your pocket.

[benjazz77]

I have used tunecore and have attempted to use dittomusic, mainly to try and get onto spotify. All I can say is my experience with dittomusic was terrible. After three attempts to upload my album I gave up! Lost some money and time, but at least I know to stick with either tunecore or cdbaby. Also, ditto's pricing is very ambiguous. Each album requires £2 monthly subscription on top of album fee and the unlimmited tracks only refers to each release (Now who is going to release an album with 100 tracks?)! I don't wish to be a partypooper and this is only my experience. On the other hand tunecore and cdbaby have been fine....serves me right for trying something new!!!

[The Beatsmith]

tunecore need to get their stuff on spotify...

[benjazz77]

yeh, I agree. I really like tunecore, but can't understand why they aren't signed up to spotify. They must be losing out! That's why I tried ditto...think i'll try cdbaby next! Only thing that worries me is that cdbaby artists aren't really showing up on spotify yet! Anyone got any experience with this?