Trying out Symphonic
I’m trying to put my stuff back on streaming (minus Spotify, of course) and for this I am trying out Symphonic. So far I’ve just uploladed Transitions, which is awaiting approval.
Here’s a quick review of the experience so far.
Finally setting up CDs
I’m finally getting around to putting more of my albums on CD, thanks to the on-demand manufacturing capability afforded by Kunaki. You can see which albums of mine are available via this collection, and on each of them you can buy the album via Bandcamp, Mirlo, or direct from Kunaki.
If you buy from Bandcamp or Mirlo the album will also come with the digital download in your choice of formats.
Anyway, inside you can vote on which additional albums I should focus on making available!
Where’d your music go?!
Today I removed all my music, except The War Machine, from Spotify, for the reasons explained in that song (and also in this lengthy diatribe)1.
But doing so also required, for very annoying reasons, removing it from all other streaming platforms as well, because the distributor I was working with, TooLost, had no option for removing music from just one platform without deleting and re-uploading everything2.
So, when is my music going to get back onto the other streaming platforms? Ehhh.
Please do not ask me about streaming distribution
Quite some time ago I posted my recommendations for streaming distributors but things have all changed in a very bad way since then.
On Spotify, and listening to and collecting music
As a musician, I am often asked where people can listen to my music, and people express confusion about why my music isn’t on Spotify (aside from The War Machine, which is about why my music isn’t on Spotify).
I wrote this as an explanation of why I don’t support Spotify and why I ask listeners to return to buying and collecting music or, at the very least, moving to other streaming services.
Also, see Jeremy Blake’s very good video on this topic.
tl;dr summary: If you are able to, buy your music, ideally from Mirlo or Bandcamp. If you are going to pay to stream, use Qobuz or Tidal, and if you want to stream for free (and I totally get it! times are tough!), use YouTube Music or Pandora.
Some recommendations for digital distribution
As I talked about previously, there are many different services for getting your music online with the major streaming providers. Here’s my thoughts on a few that I’ve worked with, and a couple that are on my radar and I plan on trying out in the future.
Of course, the best place to sell your music is on places like Mirlo and Bandcamp, where you actually get paid well for things and your buyers are able to retain access to your music in exchange, but the unfortunate reality of music in the current era is that most listeners are going to the streamers to listen to stuff, so if you want your stuff to be listened to, this is where you have to put it.
CD and vinyl manufacturing options
I’ve been looking into physical releases again lately. After my recent vinyl releases, my various polls have found that people are much more interested in buying things on CD than vinyl, because they’re a much easier means of doing a physical collection.
The manufacturing space used to be a lot bigger, but these days there’s not a whole lot of options. For most musicians, there are two paths to go down: on-demand and short-run.