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Post by Vincent R. on Jul 29, 2024 6:42:27 GMT -6
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Post by andersmv on Jul 29, 2024 7:40:50 GMT -6
Excellent, more things for artists to screw up during upload and blame on me  . I just did my first Atmos mix upload through AvidPlay this week (just one of my personal songs, I wanted to go through the upload process and see what it was like). It took me 3 tries to get approved, I screwed up multiple stupid things and I'm the one that's supposed to know what they're doing.... It's getting to the point where these upload services are going to have to offer a "mastering house" tier or something to where the engineers can get permission to do the uploads on behalf of the artists. It's just going to keep getting more and more complicated, it's already convoluted enough when you have to send people different bounces when they upload to somewhere like CD Baby as opposed to DistroKid.  |
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Post by Quint on Jul 29, 2024 7:47:40 GMT -6
Excellent, more things for artists to screw up during upload and blame on me . I just did my first Atmos mix upload through AvidPlay this week (just one of my personal songs, I wanted to go through the upload process and see what it was like). It took me 3 tries to get approved, I screwed up multiple stupid things and I'm the one that's supposed to know what they're doing.... It's getting to the point where these upload services are going to have to offer a "mastering house" tier or something to where the engineers can get permission to do the uploads on behalf of the artists. It's just going to keep getting more and more complicated, it's already convoluted enough when you have to send people different bounces when they upload to somewhere like CD Baby as opposed to DistroKid. I'm curious. What are you doing different in the bounce for DistroKid versus the bounce for CD Baby? |
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Post by andersmv on Jul 29, 2024 7:52:08 GMT -6
Excellent, more things for artists to screw up during upload and blame on me . I just did my first Atmos mix upload through AvidPlay this week (just one of my personal songs, I wanted to go through the upload process and see what it was like). It took me 3 tries to get approved, I screwed up multiple stupid things and I'm the one that's supposed to know what they're doing.... It's getting to the point where these upload services are going to have to offer a "mastering house" tier or something to where the engineers can get permission to do the uploads on behalf of the artists. It's just going to keep getting more and more complicated, it's already convoluted enough when you have to send people different bounces when they upload to somewhere like CD Baby as opposed to DistroKid. I'm curious. What are you doing different in the bounce for DistroKid versus the bounce for CD Baby? CD Baby will not take anything over 44.1 16 bit. DistroKid will take higher ones as they send to lossless options like Apple Music and Tidal. Most of the time I'm recording at 48k 24 bit, so I prefer to just keep it that way for everyones digital distribution when possible. |
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Post by EmRR on Jul 29, 2024 8:19:56 GMT -6
CD Baby doesn’t pass through production credits either, yet they have you enter that data like they will, and if you lean on them about it not going through they tell you it has to be taken down and resubmitted. Like “oh, you want that?”
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Post by Quint on Jul 29, 2024 8:26:03 GMT -6
I'm curious. What are you doing different in the bounce for DistroKid versus the bounce for CD Baby? CD Baby will not take anything over 44.1 16 bit. DistroKid will take higher ones as they send to lossless options like Apple Music and Tidal. Most of the time I'm recording at 48k 24 bit, so I prefer to just keep it that way for everyones digital distribution when possible. Oh, got it. I thought you were maybe talking about different loudness levels or something on the various bounces. The different sample/bit rate thing for different distributors is totally understandable. |
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Post by andersmv on Jul 29, 2024 8:30:36 GMT -6
CD Baby doesn’t pass through production credits either, yet they have you enter that data like they will, and if you lean on them about it not going through they tell you it has to be taken down and resubmitted. Like “oh, you want that?” They're horrible, not sure why anyone uses them anymore... I've been pushing everyone towards Distrokid if clients ask me about it, but now that I'm looking into getting into Atmos they're a pretty bad option. They wanted over $25 for every Atmos file you submit, crazy expensive. I'm trying AvidPlay right now as they offer a tier for like $50 a year for unlimited Atmos uploads. I figured if it's something I'm going to mess around with on my own music for a while at first, it's going to pay for itself after 2 uploads... Lots of changes coming quickly across the board soon. It's going to be a mess... |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jul 29, 2024 13:23:11 GMT -6
CD Baby doesn’t pass through production credits either, yet they have you enter that data like they will, and if you lean on them about it not going through they tell you it has to be taken down and resubmitted. Like “oh, you want that?” They're horrible, not sure why anyone uses them anymore... I've been pushing everyone towards Distrokid if clients ask me about it, but now that I'm looking into getting into Atmos they're a pretty bad option. They wanted over $25 for every Atmos file you submit, crazy expensive. I'm trying AvidPlay right now as they offer a tier for like $50 a year for unlimited Atmos uploads. I figured if it's something I'm going to mess around with on my own music for a while at first, it's going to pay for itself after 2 uploads... Lots of changes coming quickly across the board soon. It's going to be a mess... I use CD Baby just cuz my catalog is already on there. What are the advantages to DistroKid in your mind and are they worth the effort to start all over and drop CD Baby? Imagine, for this exercise, that you are VERY lazy when it come to this type of thing but not incapable of being motivated if it really matters. |
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Post by andersmv on Jul 29, 2024 13:39:59 GMT -6
They're horrible, not sure why anyone uses them anymore... I've been pushing everyone towards Distrokid if clients ask me about it, but now that I'm looking into getting into Atmos they're a pretty bad option. They wanted over $25 for every Atmos file you submit, crazy expensive. I'm trying AvidPlay right now as they offer a tier for like $50 a year for unlimited Atmos uploads. I figured if it's something I'm going to mess around with on my own music for a while at first, it's going to pay for itself after 2 uploads... Lots of changes coming quickly across the board soon. It's going to be a mess... I use CD Baby just cuz my catalog is already on there. What are the advantages to DistroKid in your mind and are they worth the effort to start all over and drop CD Baby? Imagine, for this exercise, that you are VERY lazy when it come to this type of thing but not incapable of being motivated if it really matters. if you're been using it forever and are happy, don't change anything. I don't know how much stuff you release every year and if you're still printing to CD's or anything, but it all adds up when you're paying by release. Distrokid is like $25 a year or something for unlimited (unless you're doing Atmos stuff, which again, is apparently over $25 per track uploaded which is insane and why I'm giving AvidPlay a shot specifically for that). It's also nice to be able to release higher quality files on some services. I doubt any of that is convincing your lazy side though, lol... |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jul 29, 2024 14:03:20 GMT -6
I use CD Baby just cuz my catalog is already on there. What are the advantages to DistroKid in your mind and are they worth the effort to start all over and drop CD Baby? Imagine, for this exercise, that you are VERY lazy when it come to this type of thing but not incapable of being motivated if it really matters. if you're been using it forever and are happy, don't change anything. I don't know how much stuff you release every year and if you're still printing to CD's or anything, but it all adds up when you're paying by release. Distrokid is like $25 a year or something for unlimited (unless you're doing Atmos stuff, which again, is apparently over $25 per track uploaded which is insane and why I'm giving AvidPlay a shot specifically for that). It's also nice to be able to release higher quality files on some services. I doubt any of that is convincing your lazy side though, lol... The 24 bit thing is a bit annoying for CD Baby. I have this feeling that one day I'm going to re-upload everything at a higher fidelity. |
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Post by Blackdawg on Jul 30, 2024 0:58:04 GMT -6
I switched to Too Lost. Been pretty happy with it. Does all the bells and whistles. As a Label account you can add artists, as many as you want.
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Post by robo on Jul 30, 2024 8:36:35 GMT -6
The 16-bit limitation is a pain with CD Baby, but I’ve been convinced to upload 16/44.1 files to Distrokid as otherwise you’ve got streaming services messing with things in unpredictable ways. I’d probably feel different if I was working on classical music.
More important to me are credits. I want folks to know when I’ve worked on or played on something.
The hidden price with Distrokid is that you have to pay $50 to have music available in perpetuity. Otherwise is goes away when you cancel your subscription.
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Post by Blackdawg on Jul 30, 2024 9:10:19 GMT -6
The 16-bit limitation is a pain with CD Baby, but I’ve been convinced to upload 16/44.1 files to Distrokid as otherwise you’ve got streaming services messing with things in unpredictable ways. I’d probably feel different if I was working on classical music. More important to me are credits. I want folks to know when I’ve worked on or played on something. The hidden price with Distrokid is that you have to pay $50 to have music available in perpetuity. Otherwise is goes away when you cancel your subscription. Another great Too Lost feature is if you want to cancel your subscription the music stays online they just take a cut of the profits in exchange. Which I'm okay with. Not like it generates much anyways. |
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Post by andersmv on Jul 30, 2024 9:15:12 GMT -6
The hidden price with Distrokid is that you have to pay $50 to have music available in perpetuity. Otherwise is goes away when you cancel your subscription. I know that in theory, it works that way. I know a few people that stopped paying and it's yet to be taken down years later. Also had a friend that died almost 15 years ago and it's still on there. Maybe I'm tempting fate and need to knock on wood, but I've yet to hear of DistroKid pulling anyones music in the real world. Having said all of that, I know streaming services are starting to track down and remove certain songs and artists that don't have many plays. Especially with Atmos becoming more common and those massive file sizes, server space is a big concern right now (I've heard plenty of people say Spotify hasn't offered Atmos yet because of server space). All that to say, I don't care what you do to "secure" a release. More and more stuff will probably start to mysteriously disappear or other shenanigans. |
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Post by anders on Jul 31, 2024 0:13:46 GMT -6
Some years ago I worked my way through different distributors, looking at their terms, pricing, and revenue share, and the winner turned out to be Emubands www.emubands.com/simple-pricing/To me they seem like a better deal than Distrokid or CDbaby, and I've been very happy with them so far. |
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Post by OtisGreying on Jul 31, 2024 1:15:40 GMT -6
Do any of you guys worry about one of these digital distributors going out of business? Then your whole catalog gets taken down one day or some mess like that?
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Post by seawell on Jul 31, 2024 10:55:18 GMT -6
I don't think the Spatial Audio requirement is ever coming. It was fear based marketing pushed by Sweetwater through their YouTube shills to sell Atmos rigs. Spatial Audio hasn't helped Apple grab any market share from Spotify at all. If Apple were to require it, they'd lose a ton of artist that would by default be exclusive on Spotify. It would be the end of Apple Music. Apple's Vision Pro is their most returned item in the history of the company. Spatial will have it's place but for music in particular, it's much more likely it goes the way of every other surround format before it than it becoming a standard that is required for Apple Music distribution. |
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Aug 1, 2024 6:37:48 GMT -6
I saw a panel discussion and the guy from Avid had by far the best understanding of the technology and the differences between platforms.
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Post by bossanova on Aug 1, 2024 7:39:41 GMT -6
I don't think the Spatial Audio requirement is ever coming. It was fear based marketing pushed by Sweetwater through their YouTube shills to sell Atmos rigs. Spatial Audio hasn't helped Apple grab any market share from Spotify at all. If Apple were to require it, they'd lose a ton of artist that would by default be exclusive on Spotify. It would be the end of Apple Music. Apple's Vision Pro is their most returned item in the history of the company. Spatial will have it's place but for music in particular, it's much more likely it goes the way of every other surround format before it than it becoming a standard that is required for Apple Music distribution. I tried Apple music for a couple months but I didn't have a device that could actually receive/transmit the proper Atmos mixes, in part due to Apple not enabling it on all versions of the app. My son's X-Box hooked up to an Atmos soundbar should be able to do it but Apple Music on there doesn't do Atmos. I guess they're trying to sell me another device? Either way, that was it for Apple Music and I went back to my usual listening methods. |
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. I just did my first Atmos mix upload through AvidPlay this week (just one of my personal songs, I wanted to go through the upload process and see what it was like). It took me 3 tries to get approved, I screwed up multiple stupid things and I'm the one that's supposed to know what they're doing.... It's getting to the point where these upload services are going to have to offer a "mastering house" tier or something to where the engineers can get permission to do the uploads on behalf of the artists. It's just going to keep getting more and more complicated, it's already convoluted enough when you have to send people different bounces when they upload to somewhere like CD Baby as opposed to DistroKid.
