Live Music Archive

The compact disc – the musicians dream.
I have always wondered about this one. If I take out a compact disc, took away its plastic packaging, took away the paper and actually took away the compact disc  what do I have?
If an individual said just music, amazing you would be right.
If you look at things logically and just sell the music rather than the compact disc, you would decrease the amount of time spent to reproduce the thing, decrease the hours and wages that take to create one, decrease the amount of money on shipping/ storage/ marketing/ selling to shops.
So the biggest wonder of my time at present is this:
Why do  all of us  charge $12 for an album download?
As a side note- my own little gripe Why do  all of us  buy ebooks that are double the cost of print books and take less time and resolution to create and procure?
So with all what  all of us  know, is it a wonder then why people pirate stuff (especially when compact discs degrade/ scratch over time)?
I think the decent folk out there will buy something for what they thought the album is worth. The most famous example is Radiohead who said their fans could buy and download their new album at any price they wish.
It averaged out at $5.
I had respect for Radiohead. They done something diverse, at least they tried to fix a problem that the music business is not prepared to tackle properly.
Unfortunately they released the album in the shops as well, fleece your fans…nice style Radiohead…[growl]
But instead of thinking, wow, this is great,  all of us  have figured out what people are willing to pay, so lets do something about this. Downloading web sites are still offer ing downloads at over $10.
I went over to compact disc Baby, wonderful standard web site… most downloads $12.
And if you want to buy a compact disc…$12.
However, I believe that the compact disc  is going to die.. It has to.
compact disc Baby furthermore realise that, and have released HostBaby for musician s.
But musicians have not realised the fact yet.
And neither have record organizations. If the y did then all of their music would be up for download at $5 a shot ( compact disc  presses, musician s, shipping- all gone and prices decrease d). It would not put an end to stealing fully, but it would heavily dent it.
furthermore add something else to the download- a bonus pdf, a picture session, a discount for other downloads, a free private members web site ( like the ebook industry does).
However it would furthermore dent the record shops, and put people out of work in compact disc  presses. But unfortunately it’s vary. I think people would still buy music compact disc s, but as time passes- this decrease s.
On the other hand- how cool would it be to go into a record shop with a flash drive and download an album?
However vary is needed.
And it’s the record organizations fault that  all of us  haven’t done anything about this mess yet. Unfortunately they will panic and fully try downloads in the future, but by then it will be too late. Most musicians would have found out about downloading and the record organizations will downsize. Would they be needed in the future? I doubt it, could be to organize large performances and tours…but why else would you need one?
Bleak picture, but true…we live in a “now” society that utilises downloads. Only several years ago  all of us  never had any real film footage web site s. A few years ago there was no iTunes. A few years ago there was no Blogs or Podcasts.
Offer compact discs and downloads. But when the time comes, kill the compact disc  and just offer downloads. You’ll be ahead of that compact disc  goal by a mile.

Simple results to get yourself known for free…
I read an article in a well known magazine the other day and found that they were advising musicians to spend out 100’s in advertising costs to get themselves known. True.
Is there another way?
Well yes, there is. What  all of us  have useful to us all is the Web. This amazing medium is so underrated it’s unbelieveable.
The key to getting yourself known is to spread yourself all over the Web. Pretend that the Web is a slice of bread, a bagel….hmm…yum.
Sorry, stay with me, you need to follow this one. If you bought some really wonderful spread, costing $100 and you only spread one quarter of the bagel (this expensive food doesn’t go far). Now you have only one bite, only one and a random one at that, so you randomly bite into the bagel, more than like ly you will have much less opportunity of being found than if you spent less money on a similar spread and used all of it, all over the bagel.
Now this is what happens everytime an individual logs onto the Web. You have one shot, you are being targeted roughly by random and too much money spent in one area is a truly bad idea. So what do you do?
Well, the main thing is not to spend any money if possible. If you have music to give out then do that. Sign up to all the MP3 hosting web sites that you could find, there are so a lot of now on the Web that they’re free and offer some cool incentives ( like unlimited bandwidth, hardrive space and such like ). The more you apply to, the more like ly that you are not going to be missed by anyone.
This technique furthermore decreases the possibility of your paid web site being shut down, having any failures in the future, or being ranked less in the search engines (with so much competition this is a high possibility).
Phase two, make sure that you have your own web site. On each paid web site put a link back to your own web site, this then stimulates your Public Relations (PR) rate with the search engines and stimulates your link status (roughly: more links in the higher you rate). furthermore you capture free traffic for a lot of years from these web site s.
Make your homepage appealing, offer ing blogs and newsletters, even “guides and DIY articles”. Why? Well once an individual comes to your web site and goes away the like lihood of them returning is truly low, and then you have lost them. This is why the newsletters and blogs are so important, they keep the one-time visitor coming back for check-ups to YOUR web site, without them trying to find you again (very unlikly).
One thing that I could never understand when I’m searching through MP3 hosting web sites is “why do people give a range of their work on one page?” All fair and well, and much kudos for doing so, but I think that this is a was te of Web real-estate. Your web site should be targeted, your name should be targeted. I’m into Techno etc, so it’s rare that I will hunt out jazz tunes. But this is what I find when I go onto a techno musicians web site. My tip would be to call yourself something diverse for each genre that you do. By way of example : DJ Harsh for your electronic music, Earthly for your New Age music, The Fields for your Country and Western music…you get the idea.
Having a separate name for each of your styles will then target 2-3 (or nonetheless a lot of genres you do) times more visitors- a possible 100-200 % increase in visitor downloads. But again, you would link each web site to each other just in case. You would even make up separate web sites for each genre anyway. Most people in the artist world do this. By way of example : Les Rythmes Digitales who made “Jacques your body (make me sweat)”- a cool techno song, and Stuart Price are one of the same. Who is Stuart Price? Madonnas new producer under his real name. The KLF, The Doctors in the Tardis, and The Justified Acients of MuMu (no joke) are all one of the same.
Diversify yourself to get yourself known, apply to all over the place that you could and keep on adding amazing music.