Goings-on in the Sockiverse
Hello! I think it’s been a while since I’ve talked about what’s going on with the band and what sorts of things are happening. So here’s a casual collection of updates along those lines.
Review: Kunaki CDs
My first batch of CDs from Kunaki arrived today, and here’s a brief review of how they turned out.
(Short version: They’re great!)
Bandcrash: Not just for self-publishing
If you’ve poked around this website you probably know that I wrote and use Bandcrash to build the embedded players for the music previews. You might also be aware of it as the tool that I use to publish my albums to my itch.io page as an alternative to Bandcamp. But I also use it as a tool for a bunch of other things in my music — including part of how I publish things to Bandcamp and other storefronts.
Here’s some ways in which I use it.
CD upgrades on the honor system
I’ve finally gone and set up on-demand CD manufacturing for a bunch of my albums. However, because of how CD sales work on both Bandcamp and Mirlo, I can’t easily offer a discount to folks who have already bought the album digitally, and also the shipping rates I have to charge through those sites are not optimal, especially for international customers or people buying multiple albums at a time.
So, for now I’ve come to a compromise: if you want to buy just the CD of any of my albums, you can do so directly through Kunaki. Note that these versions do not come with downloads, and more importantly, since I’m only charging minimal markup over my own costs, I ask that you only buy the CDs there if you’ve already bought the album digitally (including via one of my discography bundles).
Using that link will give you the best shipping rates (especially if you buy multiple albums at a time or are outside the USA) and is also a lot less hassle for me, so it’s a win-win.
On that note, if you want to buy a CD for an album you don’t own just yet, it’s actually a bit easier and cheaper for everyone if you buy the album digitally and then use my Kunaki store to get the CD. Or, you could buy just the CD and rip it yourself like it’s 2003, and then send me a few bucks some other way to make up the difference.
Anyway, now you have choices for obtaining more collectible forms of my music without it being super expensive.
Thanks for listening!
CD updates
I now have 9 of my albums available on CD, and I’m working on adding all the others which folks have voted for in the poll.
I definitely want to put Novembeat 2020 on CD but unfortunately that will require some extra process, as it has 29 tracks and Kunaki’s online tool only supports up to 25. There’s a workaround for that but unfortunately it will take some time to figure out how to actually do it suitably.
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.
Self-hosted streaming CDN
Performers who do streaming-based performances on VRChat and other places have a few options for actually providing their stream. Once upon a time it was preetty common for people to use Twitch or YouTube Live, but those are now being locked down due to advertising considerations. So, many people currently use VRCDN, an inexpensive but limited hosted service that you have to pay monthly for. But for folks with a bit more technical acumen, there’s another choice, Owncast, which is basically a self-hosted Twitch-like.
Here’s how I have mine set up and how I run it for (basically1) free.
Hello Internet Archive!
Today I had my first gig with the Internet Archive in their mini concerts series. It was a really good experience (and if you’re a musician, especially one who performs online, I urge you to sign up for it yourself!) and I’d like to share some thoughts with folks in general! (And if anyone from IA is reading this, hello!!!!)
VR performance stuff
Today was the second day of VRelium Enchanted, which I performed at and had a really good time. I’m going to talk a bit about how VRChat performances work and some thoughts about my most recent one, in particular.
UPDATE: This is obsolete! It might still be useful for some folks (especially those working on a budget or trying to get ideas of how to cobble someting together), but my current setup is completely different and much easier to work with.
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.
Song Fight!: The how, the what, and the why
People sometimes ask me how they can start making music, or how they can get better at making music when they’ve hit a wall.
A thing that has worked for me quite a lot over the years is participating in Song Fight!, an online songwriting competition that’s been going for a bit over 25 years now. It’s an incredibly low-stakes yet highly-satisfying way of learning how to make music and how to hone your craft.
It also really could use more new people participating!
On Spotify, and listening to and collecting music
As an artist I have my music on Spotify, because I feel like I cannot choose not to.
However, I would ask listeners to please listen to my music literally anywhere else.
Update: Jeremy Blake has made a very good video on this topic. I recommend that you watch it.
Another update: I have now removed my music from Spotify, and most other streaming platforms as a consequence.
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.