Making Your Own Music Available for Free Download

Re-Tuned

Hi All,

Im looking for website's where I can put up my own songs & make them available for people Downlaod them for Free. I have a myspace site set up, but its hit & miss regarding letting third parties download the songs.

Cheers

jjrg2020

Sound cloud is a good site to use, it allows embedding on your own sites as well

eoin1981

bandcamp.com

MilanPan!c

Another vote for Soundcloud

1808

Bandcamp is deadly. It gives you loads of stats which you have to pay for on soundcloud. It's got a nice simple design and it's the easiest of the two for fans to use.
Best bet is probably to try them both and see what you like. They're both good.

Here's a link to our bandcamp. We've just put our demo up for free download if you want to try it from the fans point of view. :P
http://1808.bandcamp.com/

Malice

There is also Jamendo. I would recommend creating accounts on a few different sites. The more exposure you get the better.

Fandango

Just started using Band Camp a week ago. If your making them available free, Bandcamp could be a good option. They offer a service where a fan can pay as much as they want for a download, so if someone likes the song alot, they may decide to pay a bit for it. Others might offer this also, im not sure but is a good service.

jus_tin4

Musicglue.com

MilanPan!c

My main issues with BandCamp:

* Pay content can be easily stolen (i.e. Downloaded); BC know this and actively refuse to address the issue
* Uploading can be hit and miss - I spent the better part of a day iploading 10 songs - I'm not the only one with these issues.


Until they do a better job at protecting content, I'm not interested.

Re-Tuned

Cheers for the feedback.

Fandango

MilanPan!c wrote: »

My main issues with BandCamp:

* Pay content can be easily stolen (i.e. Downloaded); BC know this and actively refuse to address the issue
* Uploading can be hit and miss - I spent the better part of a day iploading 10 songs - I'm not the only one with these issues.


Until they do a better job at protecting content, I'm not interested.

Just checked myself and i see what you mean about how it can be downloaded without pay. That is dodgy alright!

Pullman123

soundclick.com is good it's free but there are loads of stats if you pay about €9 a month, and it's pretty big 4,000,000 songs 500,000 bands registered. Don't expect to get people paying for your downloads - I got some good reviews and over 2500 plays, but no one's paid(that could be my songs, mind). That being said there's been people from India , Algeria, South Africa, Chile, China, Japan etc. playing and downloading(free) and that's cool!

1808

MilanPan!c wrote: »

My main issues with BandCamp:

* Pay content can be easily stolen (i.e. Downloaded); BC know this and actively refuse to address the issue
* Uploading can be hit and miss - I spent the better part of a day iploading 10 songs - I'm not the only one with these issues.


Until they do a better job at protecting content, I'm not interested.

Didn't know about that.
Good to know, but if people want your music for free they'll get it, unfortunately.

drumdrum

1808 wrote: »

Didn't know about that.
Good to know, but if people want your music for free they'll get it, unfortunately.

Unfortunately you're right on this issue.

If you are adamant about giving your stuff away for free, I'd throw my hat in with bandcamp.

HOWEVER, if you want to make money, as MilanPanic said, avoid it. It really depends at which level you are at promotion wise. If you have management, promotion/record companies behind you, then obviously suss out iTunes and Amazon (if it hasnt been done for you!). If your promoting it yourself to a high standard (via radio etc) get a decent website with links to places where people can buy your stuff. Facebook and Twitter is also a good start, as well as other lesser known social networking sites.

But TBH, unless you have big backing behind you, you are going to make **** all from your music on its own. The only musicians that make serious cash on their music are massive acts like Green Day, Muse, KoL, U2, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, you know....massive acts as they have the swaying/popularity power with the record companies to negotiate a much larger slice of the pie for themselves. Most other lesser bands make their money from merchandise while touring. Ever wonder why those t-shirts cost €30 a pop? Thats got to keep the band able to live and keep doing what they do. So €30 minus manufacturing and stocking costs, wages, management cuts and divide whats left by 4 or 5 (Depending on the size of the band!) and they get feck all from each one! Granted, they sell them in volume, but still the point is the same. Still, "feck all" of €30 is better than "feck all" of €10! Very few bands are "loaded" these days. Only the biggest ones actually are.

and whats worse, record companies are using things called "360 deals" where they want a slice of the merchandise AS WELL as screwing the band out of the lions share of the music, but thats another argument for another day!

drum!

MilanPan!c wrote: »

My main issues with BandCamp:

* Pay content can be easily stolen (i.e. Downloaded); BC know this and actively refuse to address the issue
* Uploading can be hit and miss - I spent the better part of a day iploading 10 songs - I'm not the only one with these issues.


Until they do a better job at protecting content, I'm not interested.

The OP wants to put music up for free download so this won't affect him.

Bandcamp is an awesome resource. It compiles a mailing list for you (if you select that as a pre-requisite for downloading and you should btw), gives excellent stats on visits, streams and DL's. My uploading experience was very simple and metadata is managed for you if you haven't already applied it to your files. Of course, i would always double up and put them on Soundcloud aswell but i would promote my release using the Bandcamp address.

Good luck with it!

MilanPan!c

drum! wrote: »

The OP wants to put music up for free download so this won't affect him.

Bandcamp is an awesome resource. It compiles a mailing list for you (if you select that as a pre-requisite for downloading and you should btw), gives excellent stats on visits, streams and DL's. My uploading experience was very simple and metadata is managed for you if you haven't already applied it to your files. Of course, i would always double up and put them on Soundcloud aswell but i would promote my release using the Bandcamp address.

Good luck with it!

Bandcamp is def cool in a lot of ways, no doubt, but it's good to know it's not secure, if you ever wanted to try and charge.