DIGITAL MUSIC DISTRUBITION

Digital music distribution

What is digital music distribution?

Music distribution is what gets your finished product of music, to your fans. In recent years, rather than using record shops or just putting your material onto a CD, you can now upload it online, allowing an easier and faster way to distribute your music to people all over the world. There has never been an easier way to deliver music to a listener. There are a range of platforms available for people to purchase your music, so ideally to release it on all of them is key, however its best to focus on the platforms that the majority of people actually use. Many artists wonder how to actually get their material out there after recording, mixing and mastering their work, because its a lengthy process to release music, however there are many websites you can sign up to, that actually do it all for you, you can pay as little as £12 a year (£1 a month) to get someone to release music for you on hundreds of streaming sites. 

A great example of a website that does this is LANDR. Once signed up, landr gets your music to over 250 different stores, including all the big ones like Spotify, iTunes, Amazon music, Google play and Apple Music. Other than the signing up fee, lender allows you to keep 100% of your royalties, which makes it one of the best distribution services for artists to depend on. They ask you to include a list of data, this consists of an artist name, a title of the song or album, a release date, record label, genre and any composer information you wish to include with the release. Though this company get all of your music out there easily, you still have to promote the singles yourself. 

This information has been collected from Landr's website, making it a primary source of information for my blog. 

LANDR Blog. 2019. Everything Musicians Need to Know about Music Distribution | LANDR Blog. [ONLINE] Available at: https://blog.landr.com/everything-musicians-need-know-digital-music-distribution/. [Accessed 17 January 2019].











-This next section includes some pro's and con's of soundcloud and Bandcamp, like what they offer you as a platform to release any music onto. 

Soundcloud & band camp: Pros & Cons

• Band camps mission is to create the best service for the labels and artists, so they can share their music and earn money, as well as fans being able to enjoy it. 

• Bandcamp only distribute to their site, so popularity is limited. 

• Bandcamp allow 80-85% of the money used to buy a track on their page, to go to the artist, they claim that the remainder of the proceeds go to payment processor fees and the revenue share. 

• Bandcamp only makes money when the artists are making money, so when a very well known artist places their music on there, and people want to buy it, they will make more money. Also, you are able to join band camp, in a more social way, as a fan, or an artist, so you can join to just support your favourite artists, or join as an artist yourself and get your music out there.

• Soundcloud is "the worlds largest music and audio platform", it is renown forts unique content and features, which include the ability to share music and connect on a daily basis with artists. 

• Soundcloud is a free audio platform, where you cannot buy the music raw, from the website, you are able insert a link to download tracks or buy them, however unlike band camp, you cannot just buyout there and then. 

• Soundcloud is great for getting music out there due to the fact it has so many people using it on a daily basis, and tough you may not make money from it, you will have a lot of people haring about your music, you are also able to share tracks to your page, so followers you may have will see whatever you share. 

This information has been gained from using primary sources, Soundcloud and band camps official websites, with terms and conditions. 
SoundCloud. 2018. About SoundCloud - Listen to music. [ONLINE] Available at: https://soundcloud.com/pages/contact. [Accessed 20 September 2018].
Primary source.
About Bandcamp | Bandcamp. 2018. About Bandcamp | Bandcamp. [ONLINE] Available at: https://bandcamp.com/about. [Accessed 20 September 2018].
Primary source.