

Music Kickstarter Puts A Record Label In The Cloud - bergie
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/05/18/music-kickstarter-launch

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drcube
Where's the recording studio? That seems to be a big part of what makes a
record label a record label.

Will musicians still have to pay for studio time, production, etc? If so, this
seems more like music _promotion_ in the cloud, rather than a label per se.

Still, it's a great idea and I hope it is successful.

~~~
bergie
We have one studio of our own in Helsinki (see <http://letgostudios.com/>),
but otherwise we're partnering with studios in different places.

Traditional labels don't always pay for studio time either, but at least we
can provide different options in that area...

~~~
drcube
You're right, a lot of times studio costs come out of the artist's advance.
And there are plenty of local studios that musicians can pay to record in.

But still, one of the big things (in my mind) labels have going for them is
state of the art record studios and top-notch producers.

Maybe in the future you could consider fronting money for studio time and
having a list of freelance producers?

Most of the local bands I know (wrongly) feel like they could manage promotion
themselves through Facebook and email. But they get really excited at the
opportunity to record.

~~~
DanBC
...even a good engineer is useful. Playing music live is very different to
recording music in a studio.

Knowing that you want a bit of echo on that and you want this to sound a bit
crunchy is good, but knowing which buttons to twiddle to get that is tricky.

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adrianwaj
They forgot to include the kitchen sink!

I've been working on something with a tour creation focus for the last few
years but for them that's just a footnote.

Superb effort or "jack of all trades, master of none?"

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r0s
I manage a small music label and that was a glaring omission for me too. That
part of the industry is brutal for newcomers, which has some serious paradox
business problems.

Maybe if you're funded enough, you can just pay a booking agency.. but for a
big group of unknown talent, I just don't see it working.

Touring is the single biggest PR problem for my artists, the technical
services are easy in comparison.

<http://monofonuspress.com/> Our website if anyone is interested.

~~~
adrianwaj
Interesting. Bopgig has the facility for one user (such as yourself) to manage
multiple artists on the site. There's a feature release on its way (public
stats and demographics) to allow booking agencies and venues to come in and
find artists and approach artists that interest them, but now that I think
about it, tour creation should ideally be automated or semi-automated,
probably the same way airline and truck routing is - but it'll take time to
reach that point.

~~~
r0s
It's an intriguing problem for sure. If I wasn't so busy with everything else
I'd work on booking full time. I've considered branching off a new company
just to focus on that.

~~~
adrianwaj
I am in the process of writing a how-to doc, and releasing a couple of
features that should make research and booking using BG fairly straightforward
and effective - let me reach out in a few weeks. You'd have to have your
artists ask fans to signup (to make the most of it), thus I'm shaping the site
up to be as compelling as possible so that can happen. It'll hopefully give
you an edge.

~~~
r0s
Great, I can't wait!

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bergie
We're building the service itself on Heroku and Node.js. I'll try to write a
story next week on how the technical side of things works, including
coordinating business workflows with NoFlo (<http://noflojs.org/>)

~~~
fascinated
Cool name, bros

~~~
bergie
The real service name is KickUp, not _Music Kickstarter_. Arctic Startup has
the company name in the title, unfortunately.

