# Any of you guys have your music posted on iTunes store or other online services?



## torndownunit (May 14, 2006)

My old band is playing together and gigging again. We are getting ready to record a few tracks for the first time in a few years.

I have been looking into info for getting the songs onto the online retailers. Have any of you done this with your own tunes? Was the process difficult? Has it been worth it?

For various reasons it seems, especially not being a 'professional' band it just doesn't seem worth recording a whole album and printing cd's now. I mean, I never buy cd's anymore (use iTunes mainly) nor do many of my friends. I am 34 and the people who would be interested in our music would likely be younger than me. For us, it seems to make sense to record a couple of tracks at a time and have them for download.

I was wondering what others experiences have been though, and if the general audience buys their downloads.

Thanks

p.s. I am not even sure if this is the best section for this thread. I was debating between this section and the Canadian bands section. If a mod feels it's better in another section, feel free to move it.


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## JCJ (Jan 3, 2008)

I have my stuff on most of the on-line sites. You can go through a site like Reverbnation, and pay around $35 to have your songs uploaded and available on itunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc. It's fairly simple, but to be honest, other than giving your band an air of "legitimacy" and looking kinda cool to be on itunes, it's an expense you will probably never recoup.
At 99 cents per download, the usual deal for the artist is 50-65 % of that. So you'll need to sell around 60 or 70 downloads to break even. Doesn't sound like much, but most artists will never get close to that figure. 
One place to look is a site called Bandcamp. They offer options for your customers (different levels of download quality), and I believe their fees are currently zero.

You can also look to IndiePool where they will press cd's for you as needed. They call it a Digi-pak, and you pay them a fee up front (maybe $300-400), and then you press cd's as required (cost is around $4 per cd, and you can press as little as 1 at a time). Better than the "old" days of ordering a minimum of 1000 copies...

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions...

Good luck.


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## torndownunit (May 14, 2006)

boomer said:


> I have my stuff on most of the on-line sites. You can go through a site like Reverbnation, and pay around $35 to have your songs uploaded and available on itunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc. It's fairly simple, but to be honest, other than giving your band an air of "legitimacy" and looking kinda cool to be on itunes, it's an expense you will probably never recoup.
> At 99 cents per download, the usual deal for the artist is 50-65 % of that. So you'll need to sell around 60 or 70 downloads to break even. Doesn't sound like much, but most artists will never get close to that figure.
> One place to look is a site called Bandcamp. They offer options for your customers (different levels of download quality), and I believe their fees are currently zero.
> 
> ...


Due to IndiePool relentlessly hounding me me through email and phone to the point where I would consider it harassment a few years back, I will NEVER consider their products. I sent them an email with a few questions and it literally took a year of telling them "do not ever call here again" before they stopped calling and trying to push products on me. I was considering calling the police.

Thanks for all the information though, I am going to check out the other links.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

The Grooveshark website just recently started a service where bands can upload their own songs. You can read more information about it here: http://artists.grooveshark.com/dashboard


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## Guest (Aug 25, 2010)

I have music with bands I've been in (Universal Honey, The Apollo Effect) up on iTunes -- with UH it was the label that put the songs there, with TAE's first album we did it via CDBaby : Discover Music. It was part of CD Baby's package when we gave them physical CDs to sell for us via their online store.

For my own stuff I had listed it on Aime Street but the stuff is too unpolished to charge money for it really. So I don't bother. I wouldn't want something like that on iTunes -- that's the place for permanent stuff. Stuff that's mixed and mastered correctly.


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