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DatM View Drop Down
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Points: 95 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: How to offer my album as a free download?
    Posted: May 13 2009 at 19:58
I highly recommend Bandcamp.com. Listeners can download in various formats, including FLAC. You can also give people the option of paying you something if they want to (through Paypal).

Its also very straight-forward and easy to use. Here's my page if you want to see an example: http://deathandthemaiden.bandcamp.com/

Last.fm is nice, but can be a bit of a pain to manage sometimes.

Forgot to mention, another nice thing about Bandcamp is that it has a very unobtrusive design.


Edited by DatM - May 13 2009 at 20:04
Death and the Maiden - A Metal Tribute To String Quartets

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Mr ProgFreak View Drop Down
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2009 at 10:29
Originally posted by Negoba Negoba wrote:

Actually, you could have started with CD Baby because once you put your CD there, they do alot of work for you...including putting you on last.fm. I have one CD there, and there are numerous sites designed to host music. One of the most common before myspace was used for bands so often (and I think it's probably better set up for larger amounts of music) is soundclick. (www.soundclick.com) It's free but you can buy "Premium" status which gives you options to have a prettier site. I still use it primarily.


Well, you could have CDBaby put you on last.fm ... but in that case they also get 9% of the revenue. Last.fm is a website that allows artists to directly put their music there (that's not possible for iTunes, Amazon or eMusic, they only deal with distributors), so I would recommend that you keep your own entry at last.fm. It also gives you more flexibility, for example when you want to put up tracks that you don't want to sell (demos etc).
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Points: 22989 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 13 2009 at 09:39
Wow, if you wrote and performed the music then I am impressed. As been said, there's a lot of potential. Keep on the good work.
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Points: 5210 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2009 at 08:42
Actually, you could have started with CD Baby because once you put your CD there, they do alot of work for you...including putting you on last.fm. I have one CD there, and there are numerous sites designed to host music. One of the most common before myspace was used for bands so often (and I think it's probably better set up for larger amounts of music) is soundclick. (www.soundclick.com) It's free but you can buy "Premium" status which gives you options to have a prettier site. I still use it primarily.
You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 10 2009 at 01:50
http://cdbaby.net/

I haven't published music yet, so I don't know anything first hand. But I've heard from many sources that CDBaby.com offers really fair deals ...
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Points: 403 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 09 2009 at 23:34

Thanks for all of the positive feedback guys, I really appreciate it!  And I fixed the song titles so they should be accurate now.

Mr ProgFreak (or anybody), how exactly does CDbaby work?  I'm not really familiar with it.
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Diaby View Drop Down
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Points: 774 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 09 2009 at 06:24
[QUOTE=Endless Wire]Okay thanks again for all of the help.  I put up a page for it on last.fm and set it up as a free stream or download.  Feel free to check it out!
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Farris+Antoon+Vigilante+Orchestra/Journey+to+the+Edge+of+Infinity%3A+Chapter+One[/QUOTE]
 
Please list here the correct song titles, because some of them seem to have been cut (for example "The Sound of One (Destitute Su")!
yeah
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Points: 415 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 09 2009 at 03:32
Very impressive Endless Wire. I don't normally have much time to stuff without vocal, but this kept my attention. Good compositional skills. Even with all the changes, everything has a nice flow to it. It sounded great as it is, but the work has vast studio potential.

oops- sorry about that- I just got to the second track and there are vocals...


Edited by cobb2 - May 09 2009 at 03:36
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 09 2009 at 02:47
Great stuff! Have you considered uploading it to CDBaby.com and have them distribute it? You could still offer it for free on last.fm ... 
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Points: 403 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 19:45
Okay thanks again for all of the help.  I put up a page for it on last.fm and set it up as a free stream or download.  Feel free to check it out!
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Farris+Antoon+Vigilante+Orchestra/Journey+to+the+Edge+of+Infinity%3A+Chapter+One
.
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Diaby View Drop Down
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Points: 774 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 08:37
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Diaby Diaby wrote:

Originally posted by debrewguy debrewguy wrote:

How do you get a server. I'm know next to nothing on things like this. I'm curious as to how to link this all up to your site. 
 
There are lots of free webservers, where you just have to register, you get some space (mostly in the range of 500 MB - 2 GB). Then use an FTP-client (like Total Commander), through which you can upload the things you want.
 
For linking you have to use HTML (if the site has no WYSIWYG editor -  like here the post editor).
<a href=http://URLofthethingyouwanttolink>The Thing (or anything you want to be written)</a>
You've got to read the small-print on the free webservers to see why and how they are free. Also many of them don't allow mp3's, zip's or rar's
 
Yep, some of the free hosters (most of them) adds ads (LOL) above your site, but I don't think it's such a bad thing. And the file size is regulated on some places.
yeah
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Mr ProgFreak View Drop Down
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 08:04
^^ as an artist you can upload your album there and then specify whether people can only stream the songs or also download them.

My suggestion: Use several platforms. As an artist who decides to offer free downloads, you'll want as many people to get access to the music as possible ... so why not create an account at last.fm and make a myspace.com page (both doesn't cost anything) to start with. If many people like the music, you can still make your own website.


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - May 08 2009 at 08:05
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 08:02
^ You can set tracks for full download
 
What?
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Points: 403 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 07:43
Thanks for the responses, guys.  Does anyone know if you can download from lastFM, or is it just streaming?
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Points: 415 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 03:08
If you want to do it properly, pay for a domain registration (a www address) and a web hoster. Create your own site in the hosting space. Place samples up everywhere you can (myspace etc) and give links to your actual site (the web host bit above). Any mp3 placed as a link on your web site server will open with a save dialog in any browser. This way you will have the very downsampled songs up in the common free listening areas and be able to offer full 320kbs mp3s (or whatever format you feel is necessary) on your own site through the links. The advantage is many people go to the free listening areas, but not many are going to look for your actual site- not until you gain a little fame, anyway.

If you feel there is merit in your work and you really want to get maximum exposure, the samples in the free sites is a great way to get free advertising and direction back to your site for the free dowload.

Domain registration and web hosting is actually very cheap. You will need to at least be competent with web design, or willing to learn, to get your site up, though. But remember it can't be that hard, millions of barely competent people have put up web sites. HTML ain't hard to learn.
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 02:12
Originally posted by Diaby Diaby wrote:

Originally posted by debrewguy debrewguy wrote:

How do you get a server. I'm know next to nothing on things like this. I'm curious as to how to link this all up to your site. 
 
There are lots of free webservers, where you just have to register, you get some space (mostly in the range of 500 MB - 2 GB). Then use an FTP-client (like Total Commander), through which you can upload the things you want.
 
For linking you have to use HTML (if the site has no WYSIWYG editor -  like here the post editor).
<a href=http://URLofthethingyouwanttolink>The Thing (or anything you want to be written)</a>
You've got to read the small-print on the free webservers to see why and how they are free. Also many of them don't allow mp3's, zip's or rar's
What?
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Mr ProgFreak View Drop Down
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 01:49
Use last.fm ... works fine, and even if you make the whole album available for free you might earn a couple of bucks when people listen to the music via streaming.

http://www.last.fm/music/MikeEnRegalia

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Points: 11401 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 00:25
www.archive.org
Websites I work with:

http://www.progressor.net
http://www.houseofprog.com

My profile on Mixcloud:
https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/
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Points: 3595 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2009 at 00:06
Mediafire will let you upload your music.
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Diaby View Drop Down
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Points: 774 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2009 at 23:35
Originally posted by debrewguy debrewguy wrote:

How do you get a server. I'm know next to nothing on things like this. I'm curious as to how to link this all up to your site. 
 
There are lots of free webservers, where you just have to register, you get some space (mostly in the range of 500 MB - 2 GB). Then use an FTP-client (like Total Commander), through which you can upload the things you want.
 
For linking you have to use HTML (if the site has no WYSIWYG editor -  like here the post editor).
<a href=http://URLofthethingyouwanttolink>The Thing (or anything you want to be written)</a>
yeah
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