
Why (not) pay for music? - hukl
http://smyck.net/2013/07/14/why-not-pay-for-music/
======
k-mcgrady
>> "Don’t even care to get on streaming platforms in the beginning. They are
all more or less under the control of the labels and you would be the luckiest
person in the world if you can buy a box of beer from the revenues after a
year or two."

When you can get your music on iTunes, Amazon etc. and all the streaming
platforms for $50 (CDBaby) there is no reason not to. I really don't
understand the authors reasoning here. It seems to go against everything they
said about making your music available legally because people will steal it
otherwise. Why withhold from any platform?

Also the advice on recording yourself isn't great. Sure you can pick up a book
or look on YouTube but recording and producing music well is difficult. Mixing
is difficult, especially without high quality equipment. The only way to get
good is through lots of experience I've found, there isn't a shortcut.

>> "Yes you will need some money for equipment"

You will need a lot of money for equipment if you want to sound good. I use an
Apogee ONE (pretty basic I/O device/preamp) and that alone is £300. A Shure
SM58 mic (for vocals) is £100. An AKG 451 for recording acoustic instruments
is £300. All this not to mention the recording software, a decent computer,
and your guitars, drums, etc.

If you record in a studio all this is provided (and they provide much higher
quality stuff than you could ever afford). They also usually have an
assortment of high quality musical equipment (amps, guitars etc.) which you
are free to use.

~~~
bnastic
Unfortunately, what you list as required recording equipment is barely enough
for a demo, let alone finished track. A good recording mic for vocals is about
£2K, good converters will set you back as much.

>> Also the advice on recording yourself isn't great

It's borderline terrible, in fact. It's the same one as "build your website on
your own, there are plenty of PHP tutorials on the internet, how hard can it
be?".

~~~
OMBUG
You absolutely don't need to spend thousands on mics, pres and AD converters
to get good recordings, there's plenty of top quality options that are much
more affordable. I'd put money on 95% of the music listening population not
being able to tell the difference between a £2k mic and a £500 one in blind
tests.

Obviously you'd have to be willing to put an exorbitant amount of time into
getting good, but that's another issue.

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Sprint
I am pretty much saturated with free music from the many netlabels and happy
"amateur" musicians who release music because they make music for music's
sake, not money. If somebody wants recommendations, name a genre and I will
see if I can drop some links. There is a lot of negative prejudice against
free music which is a real shame.

~~~
fumar
I do think there is a "negative" connotation to free music. Free does not mean
bad, or less good, than expensive music, when it comes to art.

As a musician, it is significantly harder to produce an entire album by
oneself. But, thats the great part of releasing something into the world, its
all mine. No one else's imagination touched what I wanted to create.

Set Up::: I use a synthesizer, a midi keyboard, and an APC 40. A decent pair
of studio monitors, M-Audio BX5 D2s. I sometimes borrow a microphone for a
friend that works in a music studio. I record everything on Ableton 8 or 9.

I always share my music for free, and give the listener the option to pay if
they want. I am about to release a three track EP, you can listen the first
track here.
[http://fantasmafigueroa.bandcamp.com/album/afuera](http://fantasmafigueroa.bandcamp.com/album/afuera)

EDIT: It might not be everyone's cup of tea. I grew up listening to Chicago
house/acid house. Influences: Brian Eno, Max Richter, Boards of Canada,
Efdemin, Stars of the Lid... lots of ambient stuff.

~~~
Sprint
Your definition of free is not the same as mine. I mean music that is freely
licensed so everyone can share it as they like. Creative Commons licenses are
the great standard here. Your music requires at least giving you/Bandcamp an
e-mail address (a personal gripe of mine and instant tab closer) and says "all
rights reserved".

~~~
fumar
Requiring email, instant tap closer, huh? I never had any feedback regarding
this. Bandcamp was just an easy place to share. I just changed the setting.

------
SamWhited
> Compared to the analog world, where it would take ages to copy hundreds of
> Tapes or CDs

I think you mean the `physical' world. CDs aren't a part of the analog world;
they're digital. Analog has to do with the signal type, not the
medium.</pedantry>

~~~
hukl
Oh yes - thank you :)

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jdietrich
Don't do any of that nonsense, it's a complete waste of time. Go out and play
gigs. Even if you do become a megastar, most of your revenue will come from
live performance. We're in an age where most people won't pay $6.99 for an
album, but they'll happily pay $69 to see a band from row Q of an arena. Why
spend any time or effort on the least profitable part of the enterprise, when
you can get straight to the meat?

Recording an album in your bedroom is almost always a cop-out. It's a way of
being able to tell yourself that you tried to have a career in music, without
taking any real emotional risk or doing any real work. It's a way of "getting
your music out there" that doesn't require the courage to stand up in front of
a bar full of strangers and play it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Musicians
with internet-based careers are still absolutely the exception rather than the
rule, they're still a rare aberration.

If you want to be in a rock and roll band, then be in a rock and roll band.
Don't buy yourself a bunch of recording equipment, buy a rusted-up old
Econoline. Don't overdub your guitar tracks onto a drum machine, put up a
flyer in your local music shop and find a drummer. Take whatever crappy gigs
you can get and hustle like a mofo. At the very least, you'll end up with far
better anecdotes.

~~~
bigdubs
Very easy to say, "Work hard, don't take the easier path, it'll be more
rewarding ultimately."

Much harder to actually do. The number of people picking up instruments and
really learning how to play vs. cranking through a fruity loops tutorial so
they can do minor alteration remixes isn't surprising.

Yes, this is good advice. Will anyone really follow it / see the wisdom in it?
Debatable.

~~~
jdietrich
To quote the great Ronnie Coleman:

"Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but ain't nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass
weight."

------
area51org
This is probably the future. Artists will learn to record on their own (they
already are), and the good ones will end up with patrons, who will (as patrons
do) pay for them to continue working.

------
Vaskerville
The underlying premise that labels are there solely to "promise" artists
riches via hit albums is invalid. Perhaps for the mega labels that's the case,
but there are a heck of alot of small labels who have honorable intentions and
can and do provide quality assistance (of many different kinds) for artists.

~~~
hukl
Yes and no. First of all there are no real indie labels. If a label gets
successful enough a major label will come by and make it a sub division. Even
the labels with the best intentions need to get their money back at some point
the market for them is the same as for everybody. If you are in the right
niche at the right time there are of course exceptions - but well these are
exceptions

~~~
Vaskerville
Do you know anybody running indie labels? I do. You are only talking about
major labels and "mainstream" music in your article. But, it's hurting
EVERYBODY.

Some of the reactions here are silly. If you love an artist buy their record,
tell your friends, go see them in concert. Blaming labels (big or small) as a
justification for illegal downloading is [ insert descriptor of your choice ].

Supporting your favorite artists is cool and the right thing to do. Let them
deal with their labels whether they wish to have one or not.

~~~
hukl
Yes I know people from indie labels and as I have stated earlier - there are
no true indie labels which surprised me as well when I found out. The
successful ones usually belong to another major label.

I don't encourage illegal downloads, quite the opposite. But the labels
deserve blame as well as artists who are sitting on their faces, waiting for
the labels to figure it out somehow. In the book »Appetite for Self-
Destruction« its described pretty extensively how that is unlikely to happen.

To resolve the dilemma we need a revolution, coming from the artists and the
consumers and I hope I inspire some people to wake up, use their brain and
make things better without the labels.

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intopieces
The one problem with this article: citing The Beatles as a group that won big
in the business. Not true at all. The Beatles were terribly mismanaged, their
manager sold the rights to songs for pennies or even gave them away. Money
troubles inspired the song "You Never Give Me Your Money."

~~~
hukl
Hmm I will read up on this and correct it if true. Thanks for pointing that
out!

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kristofferR
>> "Some won’t even download it illegally, instead they will just listen to
music through streaming services like Spotify which are free to a certain
extend and which yield so little profit to the labels or the artists that it
is almost like downloading it for free."

This is totally inaccurate. The music industry grew for the first time since
1999 due to digital streaming services:

[http://ifpi.no/9-forsiden/43-ifpi-publishes-digital-music-
re...](http://ifpi.no/9-forsiden/43-ifpi-publishes-digital-music-report-2013)

~~~
hukl
That is good for the labels but not for the smaller artists. I talked to
people from indie labels and major labels from the digital divisions - they
said all the same. If you are not already big you will get little to nothing
out of Spotify etc.

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voltagex_
I'll pay for music that I can get in FLAC or ALAC for a reasonable cost (say,
$1 extra than the cost of the WAV). I'm trying hard not to buy physical CDs,
but it's difficult.

~~~
thirdsun
You basically get lossless music left and right these days - that is if you
look beyond iTunes & Co.

Quobuz, Boomkat, HDTracks, Bandcamp, Bleep and others all offer lossless music
- obscure and indie music, as well as major artists.

I won't buy anything that isn't lossless and can't remember the last time I
had trouble finding an album in my format of choice.

Gladly availability isn't a problem any longer.

~~~
voltagex_
You're lucky - Anjunabeats and Armada still won't sell FLAC and WAV at
Junodownload and Beatport doesn't count - look at the markup!

~~~
thirdsun
Really? It's been a good decade since I listened to that kind of music, but
considering that their target audience are probably a good share of DJs, who
should care about lossless quality, this is quite disappointing.

------
_pmf_
> For over a decade now the music industry is struggling.

And that's where I stopped reading (which is unfortunate, because this is also
where I started reading).

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dshibarshin
Why not? Because I'm able to find all of the music I'm looking for on
Soundcloud. Plus it's a great platform to discover new talent.

~~~
hukl
And they fail horribly to enable artists to make money. Soundcloud, sadly - is
just a fancy and mostly free data store for audio files. So yeah - you nailed
it pretty much :)

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nawitus
I'll consider paying when the copyright lobby stops taking away my liberties
(which is probably never).

