THE SOUNDCLOUD BIBLE SECOND EDITION
BUDI VOOGT
The Soundcloud Bible – Second Edition
Written by by Budi V Voogt oogt Published by Budi Voogt
Copyright © 2015 by Budi Voogt All rights reserved
This copy of this book is licensed solely for your personal use. Please refrain from reproducing this book or giving copies away. I’ve put in a lot of hard work in this book and shared many valuable secrets, so please respect this and keep it from being widespread freely. In the case of a book review or the usage of quotations for whatever purpose, prior written permission is necessary. Feel free to reach out to me via the details below below..
budi@budivoo budi@b udivoogt.com gt.com www ww w.b .budivoo udivoogt.com gt.com
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Table of Contents
Foreword
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Before you continue
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1 - The Fo Foundation undation
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1.1 - Who Are You?
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1.2 - Biography
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1.3 - Artwork
10
1.4 - Online Presence
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2 - Strategy
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2.1 - Vision To Mission
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2.2 - Target Audience
21
2.3 - Adding Value
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2.4 - Creating and maintaining momentum
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3 - Using Soundcloud
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3.1 - Creating the perfect account
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3.2 - Basics
40
3.3 - Spotlig ht Tab
68
3.4 - Embedding
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3.5 - Dropbox
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3.6 - Statistics
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3.7 – Accounts
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3.8 - Monetization & Premier
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3.9 - Apps
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4 - Best Practices
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4.1 - The Final Product
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4.2 - Releasi ng Independently
87
4.3 - Getting Signed
101
4.4 - Music Blogs
110
4.5 - Building a Network
117
5 - (Un (Un)fai )fair r Advantage
119
5.1 - Become A Pro: Cheaply
120
5.2 - Comment & Play Communit ies
120
5.3 - Soundcloud Bots
121
5.4 - Download Everything
124
6 - Final Words
125
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Foreword Hi there!
Thank you for picking up a copy of The Soundcloud Bible.
Allow me to introduce introduce myself myself.. I’ I’m m Budi. I’m the co-founder of Heroic Recordings, label slash agency based in The Netherlands. Wee focus on rel W releasing easing experimental electroni electronicc music and and represen representt the talen talentt that creates it. I do artist management for San Holo, Ark Patrol, Ducked Ape, Dooqu and others. Besides that, we host the odd event, and I’ve graduated from Erasmus University Univ ersity in Rotterdam w with ith a Business Administration degree.
A year and a half ago I conceived conceived of th thee idea to write a boo book k about Soundcl Soundcloud. oud. W Wee had been avid users of the the platf platform, orm, which was then in a m much uch mo more re infantile sta state te than it is now. One things was clear though... it had become a core part of our lives as music professionals and for our artists. More so for electronic music even. Yet I couldn’t nd a comprehensive guide on how to use it anywhere.
That’s why I started writing the book. To ll a gap of knowledge for a platform that would likely become pivotal in the development of musicians and industry professionals worldwide.
Since the rst version came out in late 2013, a lot has changed. Our label, Heroic, has organically grown to over 16.000 followers on Soundcloud. Much of that growth was exponential, as we saw our numbers double in the last half of this year.
Our roster has also expanded, now including pioneers San Holo, Ark Patrol and Ducked Ape. We We picked S San an Holo u up p in Q3 20 2014, 14, whom at the time was at 4. 4.000 000 Soundcl Soundcloud oud followers. Now he’s passed the 40.000. Real, viral, organic growth.
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Ducked Ape scored releases on Monst Monstercat ercat and A Armada rmada Music, and Ark Patrol just released his debut album - Voyager - that garnered support all over the blogosphere.
I’m not telling you this to brag, but to illustrate that it’s possible. Succeeding as a musician on the internet. Even if armed with just a laptop, Ableton and the social media networks. That’s all you need to get started.
Before you continue The Soundcloud Bible (SCB) contains not only information related to Soundcloud and all it’s aspects, but also many broader strategies about the music industry, marketing and promotion. To get the best results, it is highly recommended that you read this book through complet completely ely,, so that you you can work these strat strategies egies in synergy. Onl Only y then will you reap the full benets of the the secrets and tactics explained.
To summarize, this guide will teach you you:: •
Creating a foundation foundation for being an artist on the web
•
How to form a successful marketing strategy
•
Every little detail about Soundcloud Soundcloud
•
Best practices on using Soundcloud Soundcloud
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How to get signed to a record label
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How to get blog coverage
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How to gain an (un)fair (un)fair advantage
Read. Learn. Rock!
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1 - The Foundation In this chapter, we explore every step necessary to create a solid foundation for an artist on the t he intern internet. et. So basic, yet so necessar necessary y.
Wee touch b W base ase on dening wha whatt your act does an and d how yo you u want to be seen seen,, how tto o write a representable representable biograph biography y, creating a good visual represe representati ntation on of y your our brand and establishing a strong online presence.
Seeds grow best in fertile ground.
1.1 1. 1 - W ho Are You? You? Firstly, we start o with the basics. We need to determine who you are, what you do, what kind of of musi musicc you make and th then en how y you ou want tto o communica communicate te this to the wo world. rld.
Y You ou need to have the answers tto o these questio questions ns ready and den dened ed for yo yourself. urself. After all, how are you going to tell or convince someone about what you’re doing, if you haven’t thought about how to dene it?
We’ W e’re re going tto o run through this. Grab a pen and p paper aper or o open pen a text edit editor or on yo your ur computer. Take a moment to write down answers to the following questions:
What is your artist name? When deciding deciding upon y your our artist name, you sshould hould ffocus ocus on picking so something mething that is unique and memorable. Personally, I have a preference towards names that can be associated with something visual. That way it’s it’s easier to create a totally compl complemen ementary tary brand. Also, avoid avoid names starting with DJ. They They did that in the 80 80’’s.
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Before you decide on a name denitively, make sure to properly browse the web to see if there isn’t someone else already using it. Use Google, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Y You ouT Tube to v verify. erify.
Who are you? Here you have to dene who you are personally and/or who the people are, that you’re starting this t his band with. Try and g gure ure out if there is a unique selling point in there… are you from Antarctica A ntarctica and therefore on onee of the rst a artists rtists from that region region?? Are your parents notorious notorious artists themselves themselves?? I th think ink you catch my dr drift. ift.
What kind of music do you make? As much as I hate hate to admit iit, t, it is im important portant that y you ou specify at least on onee genre of music to which your music can be categorized. Not because I believe that we need to label everything, everyth ing, but because it makes it a whole lot easie easierr to nd similar music, like-mind like-minded ed artists and an audi audience ence that will probab probably ly like your sound.
This is done most easily by answering the following questions questions:: •
If you had to name three genres to describe your sound, which would those be?
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If you had to name ve artists ar tists whom have strongly inuenced inuenced you and are similar
in sound to you, who would they be?
The answers you get from there should be a gre great at guideline to dening and describing the music that you you make. Also, these can be used to help explain the worl world d who it is that you are and what music you make.
How do you want the world to know you? This is probab probably ly the tr trickiest ickiest question of them all. What we’re trying to determine here, is how you are going to stand out from the rest. What will make you dierent as an artist or act…..
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This all comes back to the trademark which I mentioned earlier. When you you think about ico iconic nic artists, often they hav havee a type of ‘air’ or ‘amboyance ‘amboyance’’ in their style which is typical ty pical for them.
Examples: •
Prince: Challenged Challenged status quo, glamour and glitter. glitter.
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Skrillex: Challenged Challenged status quo, scene kid, everything dark, smokes, hedonistic.
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Mumford & Son: Hipster, retro, folk compatible.
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Beatles: Challenged Challenged status quo, unconvention unconventional al haircuts and music, hedonistic.
The most renowned artists often have a reputation reputation for challenging the status-quo. They push boundaries. They innovate. They take a genre or concept, then go just over the edges, beyond what anyone else is doing. They redene genres.
Think about it. Skrillex popularized dubstep. dubstep. Beatles popularized rock. In all a ll the subscenes of electronic dance music, this trend even more prevalent. Trap, chilltrap, deep house, all these genres have their pion pioneers eers and frontrunners. f rontrunners. Often, the frontrunners are the pionee pioneers. rs.
This concept can be applied on so many levels; music, visual presentation, your live performance, communication. communication. Ideally Ideally,, you stream streamline line every everything thing - so that your trademark is apparent apparent in a all ll your eorts.
If you are able to dene a particular trademark that is unique to yourself, your act or band, then you you can magnify it by making it omni omnipresent present.. Extend that tra trademark demark in into to visuals, presentation, presentation, comm communicatio unication n - choose it in su such ch a way that iitt comp compleme lements nts what you’ you’re re doing m musically usically.. If you look cl closely osely at all the llegendary egendary artists, you’ll see that they have done the same. Either intentionally, or unintentionally.
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Dubstep and Skrillex’s looks. Gothic music and dark glothes. Glamor rock and glittered leather outts. Beatlets and their bob cuts. It’s all branding.
1.2 - Biography A biography biography is an accoun accountt of life. In the case of being an artist, a bi biography ography is a st story ory aboutt you personally and your career as a musician. All artists abou ar tists should have on onee and update it regularly. It’s purpose is to (quickly) inform someone about your history, achievements achieve ments and current activ activities. ities. Writing one for yourself will also help you crystalize the points that we discussed in the prev previous ious chap chapter ter..
Biographies should oer a description about at least the following; who you are, where you are from, possibly possibly yo your ur age, wha whatt you ha have ve achieved th thus us far, what yo you u are doing now and with whom you frequently work. Contact information such as an email address for business and bookings and website / social media links should be included included too. Another note note is that bios are commonly provided in both English and the language of the country from which the artist ar tist is operating.
Long biographies Long biographies biographies are mostly only used in press kits of a artists. rtists. These are packages intended inte nded for third par parties ties such as press or promote promoters, rs, containing a few press photographs, demo tracks, artwork and a biography. The length of a long biography should not extend a single page. These longer bios often include a more detailed description descriptio n of the journey of an ar artist. tist.
Examples of great press kits and biographies: •
Afrojack
•
Hardwell
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Short biographies Short biographies are the ones that you see on ‘about’ and ‘account description’ pages. Think about the Soundcloud account description, YouTube channel ‘about’ page and so on. The primary goal of these is to give a quick idea abo about ut who an artist is, where they originate from, what they do, make, and with whom they do so. Short biographies should shoul d be limited to 250 words although I would even rec recommen ommend d staying w within ithin the 100 if you’re using it on a social-media page.
Minimalistic biographies These types type s of biograp biographies hies are a rising trend, particularly among newer subsets of electronic music. music. Biographi Biographies es that inspire intrigue a and nd surround the ar artist tist w with ith an air of mystery. This style is popular among the hipsters, using hipster hipster sy symbolics mbolics such as ∆ and other signs to cconvey onvey their style. Often it’ it’ss combined with a single phrase, a conviction. Parisian duo Alesia duo Alesia,, signed to OWSLA, are a good example. Their ‘about’ tab on both Facebook and Soundcloud starts with the phrase: “We make music, fuck a genre”.
https://soundcloud.com/alesia14thstreet
1.3 - Artwork Artwork. Art work. Desi Design. gn. Visuals. Grap Graphics. hics. All names for the same thing. I’m talking abo about ut every piece of visual (re)presentation used for your brand.
Including, but not restricted to: •
Logo
•
Color palette
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Font
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Release covers
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Website design
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•
Icons
•
Facebook cover
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Live costumes / personal (stage (stage) appearance
Y Your our visual presenta presentation tion should should be an extensi extension on of the music tha thatt you you’re ’re making. After the music, visuals are your strongest strongest too tooll to lea leave ve an impressi impression on on y your our fans. Y Your our style sho should uld be compa compatible tible tto o your musi music, c, but also uniqu unique. e. It has to dieren dierentiate tiate somehow.
Food for thought I want you to think about m musical usical genres and their fans. About rockers and ttheir heir dark clothing and band shirts. shir ts. About gothics and their make-up ma ke-up and chains. About reggae fans with w ith dreadlocks and Jamaican colored cotton clothing. You You shoul should d catch my drift drif t by now now…. …. What I’ I’m m try trying ing to illustrate is that there are styles tthat hat are typical ty pical for specic musical styles. The fans that adopt these styles, do so from copying the t he example set by other fans and of the bands they love. The bands themselves have often not invented invented the style… they copied it from other similar sounding acts and their environmentt too. But that isn environmen isn’t ’t true for all of them. A small percentag percentagee of ar artists tists are the front runners… the rst who dare to adop adoptt a new and radical style, or to challenge what everyone everyone is doin doing g now now.. If you take a mome moment nt to think abo about ut leg legendary endary acts that have received larger fame than their contem contemporaries, poraries, such as The Beatles, The Prodigy, Rolling Stones, Stones, Bob Marley Marley… … these ar artists tists have al alll taken on a visual presenta presentation tion that was either shocking shocking or challenging tto o their contemporaries. contemporaries. Th They ey really ‘go ‘got’ t’ what iitt meant to be unique and how to dierentiate themselves. Chances are that they didn’t even do this consciously.
Y You ou sho should uld use this knowledg knowledgee to your a advantage. dvantage. If you you’re ’re an in indie die band, yo you’ u’re re stupi stupid d for taking on a hard rock appearance. But you’d be stupid to do exactly the same as what every every other indie band o out ut there is d doing oing too too.. Figure out a wa way y to stand ou out. t. Give your visuals a twist. tw ist. Something that temp tempts ts people… something challenging… something dierent!
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Put it to practice Having slick, sharp and professio professional nal design is super important. It’ It’ss part of the rst impression impressi on you make - and it needs to be per perfect. fect. Also ccontin ontinuity uity is a big factor in having good designs, you want to establish a visual trademark, where all your releases and logos come together in one style that’s typically yours. Chances are you aren’t the best designer yourself. Drawing isn’t your thing and you’re not too procient with photoshop either... No worries. This is the case for most musicians. You want your designs to be on the same level that you demand your music to be. And you want all your content to look uniform - not chaotic. Therefore it’s important you nd the right person or company to take care of this for you. Y You ou sho shouldn’ uldn’tt save time n nor or mon money ey on nding the right visual ar artist tist to rep represent resent yo you. u. Luckily, nding the right people doesn’t always have to be expensive.
Finding good and cheap designs Collaborate Collabora te with a beginni beginning ng designer Start a supportive relatio relationship nship with a beginning designer designer.. Oer them exposu exposure re (by giving credit) or a small nancial fee in return for their services. There are plenty of starting designers who would be open to such an idea… the trick is nding them. Forr my label, we used exactly this method. By inciden Fo incident, t, we disc discovered overed a very talent talented ed designer on an EDM (electronic dance music) related forum. He was oering free logo designs to producers in exchange for exposure. We contacted him and negotiated a relationship in which he became our exclusive designer in exchange for exposure. We promoted promo ted his ccompan ompany y and name on all our descriptive pages and always gave credit when due. due.
Today, he is our the head of design for our record label - helping establish it from ground up. up. He totally understands our style and as all our designs come from him, we’vee got o we’v one ne cohe coherent rent and unif uniform orm style.
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Places to search •
District EDM District
EdmDistrict is a YouTube network with a thriving forum community. There’s a separate category for art and designs. Create an account to respond to any of tthe category he designer’s designer’s post, to send them a private message, and don’t hesitate to drop them a direct mail. mail.
•
Society6 Society6
Society6 is a website that aggregates aggregates art from great artists, artist s, reprinting the designs on a selection of products - tshirts, phone phone sleeves, etc. There are many talented artists on there, whom are all eager to get the word out about their creations. Research the ones that stand out to you and drop d rop them a mail.
Crowdsourced Design Crowdsourced design is a relatively new phenomenon on the internet. The websites that oer these services are like online marketplaces with huge pools of freelance designers. As a customer you you are able tto o create a jjob ob in which y you ou specify your needs and th thoughts oughts about the design that you want to have made. You set a deadline for this job and a prize amount for the winning submission. Many designers (think 10-100) will then pitch their design ideas to your job for you to review. You are able to comment on the incoming designs and to provide criticism. Once the deadline passes, submissions are restricted and you are forced to pick a w winner inner..
This method allows you to get high quality logos for as cheap as 25$ from a decent selection of options. Recommendable.
The best sites for crowdsourced design are: •
99 Designs
•
Crowdspring
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Fivver - http://verr.com Fivver is a websit websitee where people o oer er a whole array of serv services ices for just ve dollars. Hence the name Fiverr. A job on this platform is called a gig. Amongst the huge supply of gigs is a lot of peopl peoplee oering designing services. Usually tthese hese gigs deliver results within 48 hours of your your initial request. A typical gig has a xed price of 5$ an and d charges an additional 5$ for additional extras.
This solution is great if you need a temporary design design made, but is often not likely to result on a long-term collaboration. It can however be a great tool for collecting logo ideas.
These methods are good tools for establishing relati relationships onships with designers and getting visuals for cheap. cheap. Don Don’t ’t un underestimat derestimatee the importance. T Take ake a look a att your fa favorite vorite popular artists on Soundcl Soundcloud oud - likely they’ve got a strong unifo uniform rm v visual isual style.
1.4 - Online Presence Y You ou need tto o be everywhere. At least, everywhere where it’ it’ss relevant.
As an artist ar tist striving to get exposure, yo you’ u’ve ve hopefully n noticed oticed that the social m media edia platforms that you need to grow a fan base on are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud. If you take a lot of seles or have a passion for photography, you probably want to add add Instagram too.
Why? Simple. Simple. Wh When en a fan googles y your our band name name,, you wan wantt them to be a able ble tto o connect with you on the platfo platform rm tthat hat they prefer the most. It’ It’ss very likely that this w will ill be one of of the ones tha thatt I just m mentio entioned. ned. This also means that wh when en you su submit bmit yo your ur content to a music professional, be it a label owner, agent or manager, they will execute that exact same search. And A nd they will judg judgee you for the results. T Trust rust me on that. Because if they aren’t able to easily nd your presence on the aforementioned sites,
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it’s highly unlikely that they will invest time in you. It means that you haven’t laid the foundation foun dation necessary to connect w with ith your fans, everywhere. Out of all the social channels, Soundcloud and YouTube are most crucial to your success. Why? Because these are the platfo platforms rms focused on content. This is where people will go to nd your music music and videos. F Facebook acebook and Twitter Twitter are also very important, but more more as a benchmark fo forr your success, than for crea creating ting it in the rst p place. lace. Very Very few artists grew famous via Facebook, however many Soundcloud and YouTube uploads have gone viral - driving growth on the other social platforms.
An unforgettable unforgettable menti mention on goes to th thee all old websi website. te. The There’ re’ss nothing that says credible more than yourname. than yourname.com com.. This goes for all of you. You should own your artist name. com,, no excuses. If you know the tricks, you can already score a domain for three com dollars yearly, with a nice hosting package to go with it for just a tenner.
Small but important side note here; the most important domain to get is a .com. Others such as .eu or .net are way less important for search machines for determining your page page ranking. Google indexes ..coms coms better better.. If you you’re ’re n not ot from the U USA, SA, it might be interesting interesting to get an a addition dditional al domain name of y your our residing country country and to link this through to your original website (For example, if you’re from Spain, get a yourban yourbandname.es dname.es - and have that link to your primary domain at yourbandname.com).
Getting a cheap domain and hosting An eective way of getting getting cheap do domains mains and hosting packages packages is by using discount coupons. These are issued to long-time users of webhost service sites, generated via aliates and ads. There are also aggregato ag gregatorr sites, at which a community collects all the coupons they can nd for a specic service, ser vice, product or company, company, and these are collectively evaluated. Great sources to nd good coupons and vouchers.
Cheap websites that I would recommend to score domains and hosting with are found below.. Sign up via them below them,, but m make ake sure to use a discoun discountt coupo coupon n to get the most bang for buck.
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Webhosts & Domain sellers For both GoDaddy and Hostgator I have created aliate accounts, allowing me to generate deals that are better than what you’d get by going to their site directly. You can use these oers, or search for coupon codes yourself.
GoDaddy SCB Oers Oers - $1,49 a year for a .com domain domain - $1,00 a month for website hosting + a free .com domain
HostGator HostGator SCB Oers
- 25% disc discount ount on all hosting packages // code: soundcloudbible001
- $9,94 disc discount ount on all hosting packages // code: soundcloudbible002
Sign up here. here.
Coupon aggregators: •
Fat Wallet:
http://www.fatwallet.com/ http://www.fatwallet.com/ http://www.fatwallet.com/GoDaddy-coupons/ •
RetailMeNot:
http://www.retailmenot.com/ http://www.retailmenot.com/ http://www.retailmenot.com/view/godaddy.com http://www.retailmenot.com/view/godaddy.com http://www.retailmenot.com/view/ hostgator.com hostgator.com
-If you’ve secured a domain and hosting package but are wondering what to put up on the site, don’t fred. Minimalism is the new big thing and there are many tools out that
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allow non-coders to set up good looking websites. These easy website building solutions are called CMSs (content management systems). Platforms Pla tforms that you can instal installl on a webhost, install a theme on, and can customize that into a fully edged site site.. Customizing and posting cont content ent from a CMS is easy, even for those unfamiliar with w ith building sit sites es or codi coding. ng. Most o off them have visual ed editors itors giving you a ‘what you see is what you get’ experience.
My personal preference goes out to the W the Wordpress ordpress CMS, CMS, in combination with a theme tweak ing, this w will ill give you the most exible and from Themeforest. Themeforest. With a little bit of tweaking, extensive website platform. Forr easy drag and drop website editing you can also check out Squarespace. Fo Squarespace. Bit more expensive, yet very good software from f rom an inspiring start-u star t-up. p. Their pre-set free themes are beautiful.
Single page artist sites are also becoming more and more common. common. A site with a single landing page, with a background in the visual style of the artist, together with links to Tumblr ca can n be g great reat solu solution tion the artist’ art ist’ss social media pages and contact information information.. Tumblr if you’re you’re looking to create something like this. Easy to maintain, but restricted restr icted in functionality.
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2 - Strategy In this chapter, we’ll discuss strategy.
Wait W ait what what… … strategy? Y Yeah eah strategy strategy.. A master plan plan,, so to speak.
This might seem unnecessary unnecessar y to you, but you’ll you’ll have to trust me on this. Sure there are artists who make it big w withou ithoutt having a plan, but this happens through sheer genius, talent or luck. Or a combination of those. The majority of people who made it big have done so because they had goals, a plan, a division div ision of tasks and a team… all of these simultaneously working to a common goal is what makes it work. Specically, we’ll talk about: how to dene your ‘mission’, your target audience, developing a way to add value to the world, and the importance of momentum.
Sure, you can become successful withou w ithoutt having a laid out plan and knowing where you’re you ’re g going oing - b but ut yo you u can be damn sure it’ll be a quicker jo journey urney if you plan plan correctly. Determine your destination. Figure out your path.
2.1 - Vision To Mission A vision and a mission. mission. These soun sound d like abstract te terms rms that are often used by bu business siness gurus. Well… they are. A And nd for great reasons. These two words envelop envelop your goals and methods of attaining them.
Having a clear vision v ision as an ar artist tist is incredibly important.. important.... likely the most important aspect that contributes to your success. I reected on this in an a n earlier blog post, which I would like you to read;
“I have been managing artists for four years, some of whom I still work with,
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like Ducked Ape, Ape, however other relationships have failed. For a plethora of reasons, such as a disconnect between their goals as artists and mine as a manager, developing different musical tastes, and levels of ambition just not matching up. I have worked with big egos, small egos, the talented but lazy and the talented and driven. Ducked Ape, my initial act, are the reason i got started in the music industry. They,, just lik They like e mysel myself, f, ha have ve gone fr from om loving m music usic – but be being ing clue clueless less abou aboutt the business, to driven and goal oriented individuals. Finding the right artists to work with has been quite the journey. Three years years ago, I w was as happ happyy to expand, br bringing inging a artists rtists under my u umbrel mbrella la that stood out to me musically. I was eager to learn, eager to work, and eager to lose the dependency on my then only act – Ducked Ape. Those were the conditions on which I signed and work with acts… of course, screening for a fit in personalities, but never in the way that I do now. Four acts that I worked with turned out to not be the right match. All of these people have become good friends of mine, many still are, and I owe a lot to them – yet in retrospect, I would not have signed them today. What my team and I found is this: Great artists stand out with exceptional music and work ethic, but most of all – with vision. Our artists that are experiencing most success, but also those around me in the industry, and that friends of mine work with, all have that one thing in common: VISION. From knowing exactly how their music has to sound, to who should play it, to which artists to remix, what parties to play, how all visuals should look, all of it – is subject to that vision. For these artists, it serves as a filter and standard of quality control, for both themselves and everyone else. This works, because because onc once e you ha have ve figur figured ed out exactly wh what at you want, want, achie achieving ving it is a matter of moving towards that goal. For me, this trait in an artist, changes my job from ‘being the bad guy that forces you to do what you don’t want to do – and takes care of business’ to ‘facilitating and creating whatever opportunity to realize that vision’. The distinction here, is that in the first scenario, as has happened in the past, I am typically the one with the vision – not the artist. And that’s no recipe for success.
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Regardless of whatever you do… producing music, running a label, or whatever else… ask yourself: Do you have a clear vision of what you want, how you want to get there, and what it will take? If not – go back to the drawing board.
(Running An Independent Label: A Year In Review; October 28, 2014)” 2014) ”
Every artist ar tist should have a v vision ision and a mission dened for themselves. A vision that explains the the greater go goal al that you you’re ’re chasin chasing, g, a reason for ev everyt erything hing that you do. do. And a mission that lays out exactly you you’re ’re g going oing to m make ake that vision a reality reality.. Both of these statements should tell something dierent about you... something unique. It should elicit your values. It should display what you truly believe in - a manifestation of what makes you dierent from the rest. res t.
To dene your vision and mission, write a them down in the form of statements. These are your personal guidelines. A mirror in which you and your team can value all of your actions - to see whether they contribu contribute te to achieving your greater goals and a nd are a aligned ligned with your values and and beliefs.
Vision Statement Long term: Denes where you want the world or yourself to be in the ffuture. uture.
Questions: Where do you you ultimat ultimately ely want tto o be as an artist? What is your ul ultimate timate go goal? al? The greater purpose?
Example Anwers: “A world without poverty”, “Germany’s best dubstep producer”, “The rst saxophone player to reach mainstream notoriety”.
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Mission Statement Short term: Practical. Denes how you are going to achieve achieve your v vision ision..
Questions: What and how how will you do things to reach y your our goals goals?? How d does oes this make you dierent?
Example Answers: “To facilitate education for unfortunate children in third world countries”, “To deliver absurdly complex dubstep that has never been heard before”, “To create the best genre crossing saxophone inuenced music ever”.
Take a mome moment nt to write these down. This might seem childish or unnecessar unnecessary y, however thinking about your mission and vision should force force you to reect on everything every thing that you’ve been doing. If you are able to successfully put it into words, you will have a guideline on which you can judg judgee all your actions. A distinction of the path that you must must walk and therefore y you’ll ou’ll also better know w when hen yo you u are on or o the path, making your journey more ecient.
2.2 - Target Audience Wee will now set out tto W o dene your your target audi audience. ence. After all, it’ it’ss pretty darn hard to sell something if you don’t know who to sell it to and where to nd them.
Y Your our target a audien udience ce shoul should d specify what type of people mo most st commonly list listen en and bu buy y the type of music yo you u make. It can be determined based on ana analysis lysis of your existing followers - assuming you have those - and by contemplating what type of people traditionally tradition ally listen to your genre and show up to live performances. The goal is to gure out exactly who your audience is, where to nd them and what they like, so that this th is information can support your marketing decisions - making you better 21
equipped to eectively reach your potential fans.
There is a theory on the t he web that I would like to acquaint you you with. One that I am very fond of myself. It’s the theory of “1.000 true fans”. It states that any product product or ser service vice needs only a core audience of a thousand true fans to thrive. A core audience of people that feel seriously committed to your message. Those are the people that would tell their friends about your music, come to all your shows and buy your band shirts. Once you establish a fanbase that includes a thousand ‘true’ fans, you’ve got got the foundation fo forr baseline nancial income and v viral iral g growth. rowth. The digital age enables content to spread if only people talk about it passionately. Now, assuming that only 10% of your fans are dedicated fans, this would mean you need to acquire around 10.000 10.000 fans to reach the tr true ue core audien audience ce that ca can n help you make a living. It’s a very achievable and inspiring message. ar ticle here: (Read the full article here: “1.000 “1.000 true fans” by Kevin Kev in Kelly; March 4, 2008)
Use the following tools and strategies to narrow down exactly who your target ta rget audie audience nce is.
Tracking your audience Online traffic analysi a nalysis s If you have a pre-existing pre-exist ing website or social media websites set up which already a lready have attracted trac, you can use the built in analytics tools of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud to gain insight about their demographics. For websites, Google Analytics Analy tics is by far the best and easiest ((free) free) ttool ool to analyze trac.
With your online online analysis the goal is to esta establish blish a pro prole le of yo your ur core audie audience, nce, and to nd patterns within. What pages do your followers like, what age are they, which countries and cities are most engaged, so on. For example, using Twitter analytics for our @HeroicRec account, we found that 30% of our audience is following the ocial Soundcloud twitter account, and that there’s 22
a number of artists whom they all follow. That’s actionable information that helps determine how we market our music.
Links to analytical tools and guides: •
Google: Google:
ww www w.google .google.com/ .com/analyt analytics ics ww w.google www .google.com/ .com/analyt analytics/learn/in ics/learn/index.html dex.html
Pay attention attention to the sources that t hat bring in the most trac. tra c. Are your website visitors visitors coming in via Google, Soundcloud Soundcloud or elsewhere elsewhere?? Also A lso look at the t he ‘behavior’ tab, where you can see which pages pages on your site site get the most most attention attention and which pages pages cause them to leave the site.
•
Facebook:
www w.facebook.co .facebook.com/insi m/insights ghts ww ww www w.facebook.co .facebook.com/help m/help/34 /3410978 10978792988 79298879 79
Pay attention attention to the days and posting po sting times on which your audience audience is most active. This should dictate your posting behavior. Once you’ve you’ve gured tthis his out, start star t scheduling posts to match the times where interaction is highest. •
Twitter:
http://analytics.twitter.com/ http://analytics.twitter.com/ https://support.twitter.com/groups/58-advertising/topics/247-measure-analyze/ articles/320043-tweet-activity-dashboard articles/320043-tweet-activity-dashboard
Make sure to look at the accounts that your followers follow. Helps determine their taste. •
Soundcloud: See chapter 3.6.
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What you want to know about your audience Reect on the following questions to better determine who it is you’re trying to target. The online analysis
Gender: Male or female? Age: Teens, Teens, ado adolescents, lescents, a adults dults?? Location: Particular spots where many of them t hem are from? Ethnicity: Physical appearance, cultural background. Hobbies: Particular Hobbies: Particular activities that they have in common… playing playing v video ideo games.. Driving moto motorcycles… rcycles… sur surng.. ng.. Oine Hangouts: Hangouts: Where do they often hang out in real life… any places where they often come together? Think clubs, venues and schools. Online Hangouts: Where Hangouts: Where do they often hang out on the internet…. Any places where they often come together? Think forums, blogs and websites.
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Your own live/physical fan base Think about your latest performance or about local shows of music similar to yours…. Who are the people people that sho show w up at these shows shows?? Out of tha thatt group group,, who are the peop people le that come for the artist or music specically?
Genre Stereotypes Most musical musical genres go hand in hand with ttypical ypical fan stereoty stereotypes…. pes…. The metalheads with long hair, hair, UK indie listen listeners ers with hipster clo clothing… thing… you ca catch tch my drift. Think about your what genre(s) your music is most similar to. Then about what kind of people listen to it and visit such kind of shows.
If you’ve you’ve answered al alll of these questio questions ns and utilized the analyt analytical ical tools, you should now have a good idea of who your target audience is. And within that target audience, whom comprise comprise the core grou group p of true fans. Put this information to good use. A random listene listenerr confronted with your musi musicc does not have nearly the value for you, as a listener that’s pre-selected because you knew they were likely to love what they were going to hear. Focus on building the core audience. audi ence. Sure, the numbers matter - however a thousand true fans are worth more than 20.000 random uncommitted listeners.
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2.3 2. 3 - Adding Valu Value e If you want to create value for yourself, you have to create value for others.
Why?
Simple. The mechanic behind value always approaches a balance. You can only expect to receive as much as you are giving. giv ing. And people are rarely willing will ing to give more for something than they perceive it to be worth.
Y You ou sho should uld strive to ad add d value in eve every rything thing that yo you u do. B Bee it in mu music, sic, your interactions with others, your online presence... everywhere. By doing so you create a foundation on which a strong fan base blooms. One must strive to generate generate goodwill. Everyone likes the t he person that brings something to the table. The resourceful person who knows everyone. The generous person that always gives. The wise w ise one that’ that’ss always ready to give advice. Aim to be more like that. that. Y You ou’ll ’ll see the returns plentiful.
How to add value? By being resourceful, helpful and by being dierent. In economics, economics, rare goods are pricier than common goods, because they are sca scarce. rce. Common goods are priced lower lower,, because they are more frequently foun found. d. Also the value of an ob object ject is determined b by y the total worth that can be extracted out of it - not just now, now, but also in the future. f uture. Y Your our success in the m music usic ind industry ustry w will ill be depend dependent ent o on n your ab ability ility to create this value. Develop Developing ing a strong n network etwork within the ind industry ustry is essential, yet this networ network k will only work for for you if y your our conta contacts cts have goodwill towards you you.. If they’ they’re re willing to help you. Also, you have to stand out. All the greats are renowned for innovating, for pioneering genres or doing something ridiculously out of the ordinary. It’s what drives interest. Figure out a multitude of ways how to become a person of value. On a musical, personal and intellectual level.
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Add value through music Take a look at the musical scene you are in. At everyone making the same genre as you are. You’ll notice that the majority are all doing the same. For example, Skrillex leads the dubstep dubstep genre - therefo therefore re the mas masses ses of just-starting-out produ producers cers are making similar sounding dubstep. The best way to add value through music is by pioneering. By doing something that’s unheard of. They create new genres, nd unique u nique ways to communicate communicate with their fans, or have a strong political message. What are you doing to stand out?
Add value through presentation Crucial to standing out via music, is having a visual style st yle that accomp accompanies anies it. One that dierentiates dierentia tes you from the rest. As explained in the ea earlier rlier chapt chapter er about artwork, you should create create a v visual isual style that is uniquely uniquely yours - yet one that ts perfectly w with ith your music. The greats often found ways to stand out visually. Always by developing a signature look, and often by shocking the audience. Create your own signature by doing something that hasn’t been seen before. People should recognize your brand immediately, whether they see your logo, your artwork or the live-show during a performance. Make it uniform and uniquely you.
Add value through your interactions Becoming a person that adds value in all interactions with others is the most important aspect of your career, c areer, besid besides es creating ama amazing zing music. A well-connected and well-liked well-liked artist with mediocre music music is more likel likely y to get further in the game than a great musician with bad people skills. It’ It’ss the way w ay the business works, because like any industry industry - or even more so - th thee musi musicc industry revolv revolves es around people.
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Y You ou sho should uld strive to creat createe as much val value ue fo forr others as possibl possible, e, and be int intently ently ffocused ocused on developing this skill. Whether it’s your interactions with your band members, business partners, manager manager,, booker o orr other sim simply ply othe otherr peopl people, e, try and approa approach ch all those relationships from the perspective of “How can I make this person’s life better?”
The steps you can take to be more valuable to others are simple, yet make the world of dierence. Here’s a number of approaches that I use; For new business relationships, always try to introduce them to someone else in your network to whom they could be of value, and vice versa. If it’s a fellow entrepreneur, I’ll introduce him to someone else that could further his business. If it’s a fellow music business professional, likely there’s a label A&R, promoter promo ter or booker I can link him up with. Do tthis his w withou ithoutt expecting a anything nything in return. As a result you’ll win goodwill and friends. Always check with both parties whether it’ it’ss OK to make th thee introdu introduction ction befo beforehand. rehand. Forr aspiring a Fo artists, rtists, I always tr try y to give tthem hem practical advice. If it’ it’ss a demo sub submission mission to our label - and far below the bar - whenev whenever er we have the time we tr try y send useful feedback on the music that could help them improve. Or people looking to nd their way in the business, business, they can often ben benet et from a few sim simple ple ti tips ps - even if just in th thee form of a few short lines via v ia email. Financially, logistically and in your communications you want to be on point. People prefer to do business with people that are reliable. Be on time for meetings. Pay your bills without waiting waiting for the seco second nd fo follow llow up up.. Be concise an and d timely with your eemails. mails. As an artist ar tist you sh should ould active actively ly int interact eract with your a audien udience. ce. Respond tto o fan messages on Facebook, YouT ouTube ube and Twit witter ter.. Engage the audience. Y You ou sho should uld be receptive tto o everyone. N Never ever dismiss anybody pre prematurely maturely.. Y You ou never never know what they’ll achieve in the future, or who they know. Be open to new contacts, to questions, to helping others out. Don’t be hesitant to give. You’ll nd that relationships are more valuable than anything and that sharing your network and knowledg knowledgee w will ill do you more good than bad.
These are all a ll steps you ca can n take to establish better relatio relationships, nships, become more
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trustworthy and genera generate te good-will. Remembe Rememberr that relationshi relationships ps are everything, in every industry - but particularly in the music busin business. ess. So do whatever you can to make them count.
2.4 - Creating and maintaining momentum Let’s focus our attention on your content and the way you release it. Over the last few years as an artist art ist and label manag manager er,, there has been a sin single gle strategy that se served rved our artists better than any other; The creation and maintenance of momentum. Releasing great music, driving attention to those releases, converting a selection of those listene listeners rs into fans, and then building upon that growing fan-base by following up with w ith more great releases, in a timely and consistent manner. manner. Mome Momentum ntum is the driving force behind the careers of many successful artists. ar tists. The secret is in how to create it, it, boost it and to never let go once you’re you ’re riding th thee wave.
Momentum works for a number of reasons. Firstly,, because the ccompeti Firstly ompetition tion is kil killing. ling. The barriers to the creation and distribution of music are lower than ever. One can easily download a digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Ableton or Fruityloops, and there’s no restrictions to placing your music on YouTube or Soundcloud - the places where the majority of people listen to music from nowadays. This results in a tremendous supply of music. For most music consumers that listen to music via Soundcloud, YouTube, iTunes or Spotify, the average listening life-span of a music has been reduced drastically. A track or album is no longer the favorite for years or months, but rather for weeks or days - as there’s always something new coming out and the trends are a re moving quicker than ever ever..
Secondly, momentum works because the internet facilitates virality. Social media and broadcasting broad casting platforms like Y You ouT Tube and Soun Soundclou dcloud d create a p pheno henomeno menom m where content reaches a tipping point, whereafter it’s exposed to an exponentially growing number of people.
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In abstract, virality occurs when something attracts a lot of attention attention from many dierent sources, which all coincide around the same time. The web and social media is programmed to provide more exposure to the things that t hat are talked about a lot, increasing the display rates rates on related posts and search engine rankings. This drives dr ives more trac to the subject, reinforcing the feedback loop. That’s virality. The traditional news is a great example. Think about whatever whatever scandal or disastrous event occurred on national news recently. At the root, it concerns a topic that is controversial or newsworthy, which leads to people talking about it. Dierent news stations and newspapers pick up on the topic, making it a topic of importance to news and taste-makers in a specic scene, sc ene, or some sometimes times even in the public realm. As a story becomes more talked about, about, th thee scope of exposure grows - from local news, to to natio national nal news, to international news. The internet allows this to happen at incredible speeds. Local Loc al news ccan an get promoted to internationally broadcasted television in a matter of hours. But for musicians - it’s allowed the same thing to happen. Music Music can spread like wildre w ildre on social media and music related press such as blogs and promotional channels catch on to trends quick.
The life cycle of a typical track To illustrate why generating momentum and a consistent release schedule is so important, we will look at the life cycle of a typical t ypical EDM release.
Observe the follo following wing scenario.. scenario....
Y You ou creat createe a track, up upload load iitt to yo your ur social channels and initia initiate te a marketin marketing g campaign using the strategies from f rom this book. Y Your our existing fanbase, say 1.000 followe followers, rs, appreciate the release. Your marketing eorts result in a handful of bloggers picking up the release, attracting additional trac to the release. Hype Hy pe Machine even indexes it.
All this attention reinforces reinforces each oth other er and the track experie experiences nces a short viral momen moment, t, where it racks up aroun around d 10. 10.000 000 - 100 100.000 .000 pla plays ys in a period of on onee or two weeks.
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However, in the months following the release, you do not put out a new track. Days after the initial release date you start noticin noticing g a fal fall-o l-o in the plays the track is getting. However with every notable blog feature and repost by power players, it experiences surges. At the moments moments where these coincide, some some vira virall growt growth h is generated. But once these events pass, the trac spike quickly fades. Y Your our fan base will have grown from the new fans your your release attracted, attracted, but over the course of weeks it will wi ll have transitioned from the introductory introductory phase, to growth growt h and maturity, to eventually begin it’s decline.
Look at the ‘product industry life cycle’ graph below. This is a common model used in economics and business to illustrate the life cycle of products, sometimes even of ideas. The same dynamic hol holds ds tr true ue for musical releases.
Maintaining momentum In the scenario we just illustrated, the track release was a success. The only missing factor was a good follow up on that successful rst release. Once a release approaches a state of maturity, you want to follow it up with another release. That way, the new release can ride both the hype generated by the rst one, and attract new attention attention - of which a part w will ill also ow back to the rst release. These mechanics are the foundations of viral. You put out great content and drive trac to it from a selection of sources. The aim is to make it coincide coincide.. When it does, the
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plays and exposure will wil l become cumulative - and the key to success is doing the same thing anew as soon as a s your initial project loses traction. We’ve W e’ve all heard of the one hi hitt won wonders. ders. The a acts cts that put o out ut a great re release, lease, fail to follow up with something good, that are forgotten in no time. Or the big established acts, take Lady Gaga for example, who arrived at the absolute peak - yet failed to follow up with a good new album in time. She quickly lost the throne.
Y Yet et we’ we’ve ve also heard of the a acts cts that rose to success success in just a matter o off mon months. ths. Used to be that this process too longer, as the industry was dependent on radio and phycal products. produ cts. Now Now,, with social media, this process happens swiftly. An act I work with, w ith, San Holo, grew from 4.000 to 40.000+ Soundcloud followers, attracting over 2 million plays on his own Soundcloud, Soundcloud, in less than three months time. With him, we released content conte nt according to these principles. Releasin Releasing g a track, putting in every thing to make it a success, then just before the fall-o, put out another great track, and repeat. The foundation, of course, is great music and branding, but this strategy is what kickstarted the hype hy pe and how we maintain it.
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The dynamics of the music marketplace are deadly and unforgiving. Being aware of the principles of momentum and the short life span that your music has, puts you in a position far ahead of your competition. Ideally, you should release content at least on a monthly basis. Remind people that you’re there. Don’t oversaturate your fans nor your network and lter for quality. One great track a month is much better than 10 mediocre ones. Yet putting out a great track without another great one to follow up, is almost pointless.
The ideal moment to follow up on a release is when the previous one is losing traction. Looking at the graph above, you can see a new product being launched just before the older one reaches maturity. That way, when the rst one is over its peak, the new one will have reached the growth stage.
Be disciplined about your release schedule. Plan ahead. Create an excel or numbers sheet and plan it out. Best days to put out content are on Monday and Tuesday, that’s what our gures gures show show.. At least on onee release a mon month. th. And make sure to announce announce it, getting heads to turn in your direction before you blow them away.
3 - Using Soundcloud Wee have arrived at the cen W centerpiece. terpiece.
In this chapter we will discuss all the functionality of the platform, starting with the basics and progressing to the more advanced features. The goal here is to teach you how how to set u up p the perfect accoun account, t, and to p provide rovide you with su such ch a thorou thorough gh understanding of the platform’s features that you will become a pro at using it.
If you’re you’re a rst time or novice user of Soundclo Soundcloud, ud, I suggest you rread ead all of these chapters attentively. Seasoned veterans can scan over all the basics, however pay 33
attention atten tion to the intricate little tips - as there’ there’ss insider strategies in here which ccan an real really ly improvee your performance. improv Y You ou sho should uld use these chap chapters ters as a refere reference nce point to set u up p the perfect account account..
3.1 - Creating the perfect account First impressions are everything Y Your our prole sh should ould be perfected to th thee point of excelle excellence. nce. Eve Everyone ryone that visits iitt should immediately see that you are looking and doing mighty ne. You want to leave a good impression, one that lasts.
Every visitor to your prole is going to form form an impressio impression n of you as an artist iin na number of seconds. About how famous you are, how productive you are, whether you’re organized or chaotic, your style, s tyle, your branding, whether you’re you’re cool or not - everythi everything. ng. People are like that. We have a biological imperative to categorize things.
This is especially tr true ue for musi musicc business profession professionals; als; the A&R A&Rs, s, the big producers, managers, agents and label heads. These people that are trained to sni out talent and to cut through the noise. Big labels and agencies receive tons of submissions, so they have to be hyper critical of everythi everything ng that comes in. The smallest details matter. matter. Forr them, to work with an ar Fo artist, tist, they not only need to make sense artistically art istically but also from a business perspective. Artists A rtists shoul should d show musical talent, but also that they’re organized individuals that can ca n be ccount ounted ed on. That they would be reasonabl reasonablee business investments.
Personally, as an A&R and manager, this is a major factor in deciding who we work with. There are so many people people ou outt there with excepti exceptional onal talent talent,, yet that llack ack the discipline and work ethic to become successful artists. We’ve made the mistake of working with some some of those in the p past ast and have llearned earned from it. T Today oday,, when we are
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looking to sign new artists ar tists or rev reviewing iewing demo submissio submissions, ns, simple things like being able to send send a well formulated English email - or having organized so social cial media, determining factors of whether we would work with you.
Bottom line: Show yourself in the best light possible. On Soundcloud and
everywhere else.
Changes to Soundcloud Since the rst version of this book was publis published, hed, Soundclo Soundcloud ud has been updat updated ed signcantly. They have revamped the user interface and added a number of key features. The new version of The Soundcloud Bible, version 2.0, has been updated accordingly.
To summarize the major changes: - New lay-out and menus - New stream - Removal of the private sharing trick - Integration of reposting and playlists - Implementation of the On Soundcloud programme
The full new Soundcloud platform has not yet fully integrated all of it’s old functionality.. There are some features that can only be integrated via the old platf functionality platform, orm, in which cases Soundcl Soundcloud oud will red redirect irect you to those pages.
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Editing your settings To reach the settings page of your account, click the sprocket in the top right corner, then click ‘settings’ from the drop-down drop- down menu.
Y You ou will be transported to the new settings pag page, e, where you you are abl ablee to edit all your prole settings. Not all new functionality has been integrated integrated into this menu, so press ‘Extra’ to return to the old menu.
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Perfecting your profile Basic Profile: •
Username & Prole URL URL
Select a username that is the same as what you have set up on other social media. Don’ Don’tt EVER create an account starting with ‘DJ’, as no notable (new) DJ has had to put DJ in front of his name to become a DJ. Also, A lso, make sure that your prole link has the same sa me extension that you use on other sites… for example, if you have www. ww w.facebook.com facebook.com// misterxmusic then misterxmusic then you’d want ww want www w.soundclo .soundcloud.com ud.com/miste /misterxmusic rxmusic for for simplicity and nd-ability. •
Prole Pictures Pictures
Upload a square (1:1 ratio) image of yourself or your brand logo. Make sure it is instantly recognizable. Pictures with too much text don’t work work too well. Make sure its larger than tha n 200x200 pixels. •
Real Name & Location
Filing out these elds results in this information showing up on your public prole page. If you’re ok with publicizing this information then by all means put it up, however I prefer restricting this th is to location. Many people also use these elds to st stylize ylize their account - but in favor of getting gigs, I’d recommend you do display the area you’re active in.
Advanced Profile: Description: Whateverr you ll in here will show u Whateve up p on your p prole role page be below low yo your ur picture and follower count. Most important is that you include a contact email address. You can place a minimalistic bio here or an ex extend tended ed one. The prior is the current trend in the t he electronic music scene. - See Chapter 2.1 for tips on creating biographies. Tips: When writing down an email address, you you can actually just input input a clean email address, which Soundcloud automatically adds a HTML script to so that anyone who clicks it will wil l send an email using their preferred email client.
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Y You ou can link to othe otherr accounts on Soundcl Soundcloud oud by writing their username with an @ in front of it. So to link to Heroic Recordings, one would type @HeroicRecordings in their biography biogra phy.. This will become a clickable h hyperlink yperlink within the platform and even even show up a short descriptive image of an account, including follower count - like Facebook does for friends. Try and place your email address at the top of your description, so that it will wil l show immediately immediate ly below your prole picture, without having visito v isitors rs rst expand your description box.
You On The Web Here you can ll in links to al alll your websites and social media proles. These show up on your prole page, below your description, thus removing the need for you to add these to your description separately. Make sure that you’re linking through to at least the following sites: your website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. For the latter three, Soundcloud Soundcl oud will auto automatically matically recognize ttheir heir urls and attach tthe he tting mini icon before the link.
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Whenever Whenev er Soundcl Soundcloud oud does doesn’ n’tt recognize the links you are inserting, you can customize the description. For example, if your artist name is HenryX and your website is ww is www w. henryx.com,, then you can describe it as ‘henryx.com’ instead of ‘my website’. Looks henryx.com good and instructive.
Connections Using this tab from your settings panel, you can connect your Soundcloud account to other social media sites directly d irectly.. I highly discourage you from doing so. The reason for this is because if you link through your social accounts to Soundcl Soundcloud oud directly, it will automatically automatically repost this activ activity ity to those sites (soun (sounds ds you like, tr tracks acks you uploa upload, d, commen comments ts you pl placed, aced, musi musicc you list listened ened to to). ). IItt does this in a way that looks very fabricated, as if a robot generated these messages, and thus to your audience - to other people - this looks fake. As a result, they never attribute attribute any value to those kind of posts. Y You ou can unselect these sharing op options, tions, h however owever o once nce you you’ve ’ve do done ne so, th there ere is no mo more re reason to have your social accounts locked in. You’re then just giving Soundcloud access to your information. My advice is to manually post your content to other platforms. If you discover a track that’ss worthwhile sharing, you should put in the eort to craft that’ craf t a personal post yourself.
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People will appreciate you more for it. After all, when’s the last time you clicked ‘like’ on a Facebook post that said ‘Peter listened to the following 30 sounds on Soundcloud’. For me, the answer to that is... never.
3.2 - Basics In this chapter we will elabora elaborately tely discuss the mechanics of all the basic functionality that Soundcloud oers. We’re trying to get you to understand the dynamics of the system, so that you can better use it.
Wee will treat the following su W subjects: bjects: u uploa ploading, ding, foll followers, owers, p plays lays & likes, comme commenting, nting, messaging, reposting and groups.
Uploading To add music to your Soundcloud account, you have to upload it. You can do this by clicking the ‘upload’ button in the top header menu.
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Once you’ve clicked there you will arrive on a screen where you can upload content. Now you should know that Soundcloud’s new user interface is based around HTML5, and that it is still quite awed. Many users a are re experiencing issues when uploading content via the new uploader, so I want to urge you to use the ‘classic uploader’, which is accessible at the bottom of this page.
Size With the new changes changes to Soun Soundclou dcloud, d, they have also u updated pdated the ffeature eature sets of the dierent types of accounts. Normal accounts now allow you to upload up to 180 minutes of music to your account. Pro accounts allow up to 360 minut minutes es and Pro Unlimited accounts allow an unlimited amount of music. Single les are restricted to anything larger than 5 gigabytes in size, and you are unable to upload more than 30 hours of music in a week. Also your upload shouldn’t be longer than 400 minutes.
Filetypes and transcoding Soundcloud allows you to upload the following le formats: AIFF, WAVE (WAV), FLAC, ALAC, OGG, MP2, MP3, AAC, AMR and WMA. Once uploaded, the system will
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automatically render a 128kbps CBR MP3 for playback, which is what people will hear when they stream your your sounds. This means that streaming stream ing from Soundclou Soundcloud d wi will ll always oer the listener a suboptimal listening experience. 128kbps 128kbps streams are noticably atter in Sound than 320kbps 320kb ps streams - which are accessible via Spotify paid accounts. When you up upload load lossless les to Soundcloud, the converted 128kbps 128kbps track will w ill sound better tthough hough than when your your source is a simp simple le MP3.
Doing the deed When you you have sel selected ected the le yo you u want to u uploa pload d it will be processed and transcoded. A window will show up in which which you can edit th thee details of your tra track. ck. I highly suggest that you upload all new content with ‘private’ turned on, so that people do not see the track appear on your prole immediately. This gives you time to customize it.
From here you can customize all the settings of your upl upload. oad. Make sure to set it
to private rst, then click ‘show more options’ to display all the settings.
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Also note that at at the top of the screen y you ou will see a button with ‘Download Original File’. If you have a Pro or Pro Unlimited account, you will also be able to replace the current le with a new one without losin losing g any statistics on the actua actuall uploa upload. d. This ca can n be used if you have have a new mixdo mixdown wn or master fo forr a tune.
I am going to run you through all the settings and how to best ll in these forms.
Editing track info Title / Permalink Enter your track title here. Make sure to use the following format “Artist Name - Track Title”. If it concerns a release with multiple tracks, use this format “Artist Name Track Title (Original Mix)” and “Artist Name - Track Title (Artist X Remix)”. You want to include your artist name here so that if other people re-post your sounds, they’re quickly able to identify identify the ar artist. tist. Make sure the permalink is coherent tto o the track title and the same as used elsewhere. Try Try to avoid avoid replacing letters with numbers and using too many dashes and underscores. This will w ill ma make ke it harder for search engines (incl (including uding that of Soundclou Soundcloud) d) to index you.
Image
Upload Upl oad the art artwork work cover of the track here. U Use se les smaller tha than n 2 megabytes with a minimum resolution of 300x300 and a .jpg or .png letype.
Description Enterr basic information of the track here. In the case of an actual release, add Ente (shortened) links to the track on all relevant online stores such as iTunes, Spotify and Beatport. If the track gathered support of big blogs or DJs, this is the place to mention it. Is it not out yet but will it be soon? Add a release date here.
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Type Specify the type of release. Mostly this will be: original, remix, recording or podcast. The latter two are often applicable to DJ sets (recording for live and podcast for radio).
Genre The genre tab is very important to getting your track found. Soundcloud’s search engine, and the ‘explore’ tab, works in such a way that it only indexes tracks based on the rst keyword - also known as the genre. All the other keywords which are later lled in, do not nearly hol hold d the sa same me weight in the algorithm for search results. results. What you want to d do, o, iitt to den denee a g genre enre for your track, that both p prope roperly rly describ describes es it it,, and that is compatible with one of the categories that is indexed within Soundcloud’s explore tab. In other words, clear categ c ategories ories like: Dubstep, Classical, Progressive House, Trap, Tra p, Future Bass, are likely to get indexed, whereas chaotic or unfamiliar ones aren’ aren’t. t.
Especially as a beginning artist, art ist, it would be smart to put this to good use. It often happens happe ns that whenever a track star starts ts gaining traction, it gets picked up by any of the Explore tabs on Soundcloud, Soundcloud, thus attracting more trac to an uplo upload ad and giv giving ing it a good boost. Find the explore tab here here - look at the categories and the keywords of indexed tracks for inspiration.
Tags These tags are the t he keywords that help make your track show up in search results. For every track, make sure to include at least: your artist name, “your artist name” name”,, track title, “track title”, title”, your art artist ist name track ttitle, itle, “your artist name track title” title”.. Other tags that work are the names of genres and you could also include names of popular artists with a similar sound. Again, the genre genre keyword is more important important than these other keywords.
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License Unless you are operating under a creative commons license, leave this on ‘All Rights Reserved’. Creative Commons Licenses make it possible to grant others permission to use your work, for example for non-commercial use, by giving credit to you.
Record Label Write down the name of th thee label on whi which ch the track has been rel released eased here. If they have a Soundcloud account, the form should auto-complete and redirect to their page once your track settings are saved. No label? Just leave it blank.
Catalog Number In the case ca se of a label release, the track should have been assigned a catalog number number.. These are issued by the label and if they distribute to Beatport it is visible on the release page of the track. Format is usually like [HR001].
ISRC International Inte rnational Standard Recording Code. Of Often ten issued by the record label or IFPI ( www. ww w. ifpi.org/isrc). ifpi.org/isrc ). This code is used to recognize a record and to easily track where it’s played played and sold. ISRC ISR C codes a are re a tool used to gather copyrights from for example radio plays, plays, as the radio stations just issue lists of the ISRC’s of tracks that they have played.
Buy Link Paste a link to direct the user to an online store where they can buy the track, or to a place where they can download it. Wee have no W noticed ticed that Soun Soundclou dcloud d users prefe preferr buying tracks from Band Bandcamp, camp, mo more re so than from iTunes and Beatport. It has a more genuine feel. For free downloads, I recommend that you use unlockthis.net unlockthis.net in in order to exchange your downloads for followers followers on social media.
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Custom Link Title Allows you to rewrite the text text in the ‘buy’ bu button tton that a appears ppears on you yourr track. This button butto n links through to the buy link. Onl Only y availabl availablee for pai paid d accounts. W Wee like to use simple custom texts, like ‘DOWNLOAD.’ for downloads and ‘BUY.’ for purchase links.
Video Link Paste a link to a YouTube or Vimeo upload of your track or videoclip. This will be embedded in your Soundcloud sound and available under the ‘View Video’ button. With the recent changes to Soundclo Soundcloud, ud, this feature has been removed from th thee pub public lic display of sounds. However However since the feature is still there, there is a possibility that it will be reintegrated.
The Private Sharing Trick In the past, Soundcloud had a hidden feature that allowed users to share private uploads to both their followers, and the people they followed. It was incredibly eective
- yet unfortunately it has been removed with the platform’s latest changes. The removal was a loss to many of the platform’s users, however Soundcloud has properly compensated for removing this self-promotional tactic, by integrating reposting and changing the dynamics of the stream - allowing you to make well up for the loss. Read more about that later.
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Playlists / Sets Y You ou can combin combinee several up uploads loads int into o a single ‘‘sound sound’’ by adding th them em to a p playlist. laylist. This is great if you need to bundle multiple track for an EP or album, or when you want to create a showcase of a specic type of releases - say a list with originals or remixes.
The playlist is an articial sound which transfers all statistics to the original sounds which it combines combines.. When yo you u group m multipl ultiplee sounds int into o a playlist playlist,, someon someonee who is listening to the playlist set is actually playing all the individual uploads consecutively. All the plays that a playlist playlist ge generat nerates es will be contributed to th thee track that is p played layed within the playlist - so if a user listens to a p playlist laylist and st stops ops listenin listening g after the rst track, the play count will wil l only increase for the rst tr track. ack. Howev However, er, othe otherr statistics such as likes and a nd reposts will be contribut contributed ed direct directly ly to the playlist.
Playlists can be created either by uploading multiple new tracks at once and enabling the ‘make a playlist when multiple tracks are selected’ feature, or from the menu that allows you to add existing sounds to a playlist. Y You ou can add any so sound und in Soun Soundclou dcloud d to a pla playlist ylist by clicking the ‘Add Add to playlist’ playlist’ button. butto n. From the there, re, you can ei either ther add iitt to an existing pla playlist, ylist, or creat createe a new on one. e. Creating a new playlist is very straightforward. Click ‘create new’ new’ and ll ll in a tting title. Just like with traditio t raditional nal uploads, I typically encourage encourage people to set new playlists to private, so they can customize it to perfection before they publicize it.
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The new Soundcloud allows you to add any type of sound to a playlist, which is a more powerful feature than many people realize. It allows for much better collaboration collaboration between users and can be used to spread spread out conte content nt and iit’ t’ss exposure.
Let’s sketch sketch a scenario. Imagine a producer that is releasing an EP with a record label. The label wants to be the rst to upload the EP to Soundcloud, and they also want that upload to be the sole upload on the platform - directing all the trac and attention to their uploads. uploads. This increases the odds of v virality. irality. The artist however wants to upload content to their prole also, doing more than just reposting the label’s playlist. Now because playlists allow content of dierent creators to be combined, there is an ideal solution. One that our partner label friends are using often, to mutual success of themselves and their artists. artists. It’s a solutio solution n where for example for a 4 track EP EP,, the label would uplo upload ad 2 track trackss exclusive, and the artist would upload 2 tracks exclusively, and then both parties include the other’s uploads in a playlist. This allows both parties to share the content, but to still display the full release on their prole. And the added benet here, is that listeners from the artist page will contribute to the growth of the tracks uploaded on the label page and vice versa.
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As mentioned mentioned befo before, re, users also have the a ability bility to uploa upload d new con content tent from within a playlist. You can do this by going into the settings of a playlist and selecting ‘add new tracks’ at the top. Whenever Whenev er a play playlist list is set to priva private, te, it will issue a pop-up that allo allows ws the user to switch all of the t he inclu included ded sounds to private also. This is a great setting allowing you to instantly publicize something when you decide to publicize.
Followers Followers are the cornerstone of Soundcloud. The whole community is based on ‘followers’. Following accounts allows you to stay up to date of the activity of that account, which becomes visible on your stream (what used to be ‘dashboard’). It displays all uploads and reposts from those you follow.
As with w ith other social p platforms, latforms, yo you u are able tto o get a good in indication dication o off the fame of an artist by judging their follower count. Famo Famous us ar artists tists have h high igh follower counts. There are some oddities though… at times you will nd nd artists who are ‘huge’ on Sound Soundcloud cloud in comparison to their fanbase on other platforms. platforms. This is because bec ause this medium is more focused on music and tracks tend to go viral under dieren dierentt conditions here than they would on on Y You ouT Tube or tradi traditional tional media.
Whenever you fo Whenever follow llow som someone, eone, tha thatt person receiv receives es a noticati notication. on. This is displa displayed yed on their ‘activity feed’ which immediately oers them a chance to ‘follow you back’. Before people do so, they will often check out your account. If your music is to their liking, there’ss a good chance they’ll follo there’ follow w back. This process creates the basic dy dynamic namic which you need need to harness in order tto o develo develop p a growing fan base.
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The activity feed is accessible from tthe he top men menu. u. Click the speech bub bubble ble with the heart to expand it.
Y You ou want m more ore fo followers. llowers. B Better etter foll followers. owers. M More ore targeted ffollowe ollowers. rs.
Wee can do that. He W Here’ re’ss how. how.
Strategically Following Every account is limited to following a maximum ma ximum of 2000 people. Logically though, t hough, you can’t can’t fo follow llow 2000 peo people ple and a actively ctively know wha whatt each and eve every ry one of them is u up p to. 100 would be far more credible. Famous artists often follow between 1-100 people, which makes total total sense as they don don’t ’t ha have ve to rely on foll following owing people to gath gather er new followers.
Now, you want to use this follower system to grow your own follower base. To do this, you need need to fo follow llow new peo people ple on a daily basis, and then unf unfollow ollow the n non-respo on-responsive nsive bunch to to make room fo forr new on ones. es. Simp Simple le right right??
On average, 10-15% of the people that you follow will follow you back within 30 days. Y You ou can increase this conve conversion rsion by carefully selecting who who you ffollow ollow,, scanning their accounts for musical compatibility, good uploads, professional branding and a following count below the 1000’s.
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Every day a normal Soundcloud account is able to follow or unfollow 100 people. A paid account has this capped to 250. This means that on a normal account, yo you u could unfollow 50 people and follow 50 people on one specic day.
What you want to do is this: •
Find a big artist whose whose music is similar to yours. Their fans must be likely to dig
your music. music. •
Go to their followers followers
•
Start following following their followers followers every day for the maximum amount. 100 for a free
account, 250 for a paid account. acc ount. •
Repeat this until you have reached 1000 − 1500 following.
•
Once you have reached this limit, start unfollowing the daily maximum amount of
people, until you’re back at 100 following. Start by unfollowing the people that haven’t followed you back. •
Rinse and repeat until you have cleared a full list of followers followers of a particular artist.
•
Move on to the next artist.
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By doing this, you should be able to grow your follower base by at least 15 per day on a free account. All of this is organic, as you’ you’re re actually targeting people that would like your music. music. These n new ew follo followers wers are very likely to d develop evelop a p passion assion ffor or you an and d to actively comment on your sounds. The better your music is, account looks and more followers you gather, the higher your conversion ratio will become.
Note: there are tools to automate this process. Continue to chapter 5.3 to learn more.
The key element element here is consisten consistency cy.. Do this on a daily basis and you will see your fan base thrive.
SCB V2 update: With Soundclou Soundcloud’ d’ss rising popularity popularity,, reporting 1175 75 million pl plays ays per mo month nth in December 2014, the relevance of plays as opposed to follower count is increasing. More people are adopting the platform as their favorite music library, using it to browse and listen listen to m music usic as they wo would uld have with Y You ouT Tube in the past. Also as more musicians and creators adopt the platform, the hard-core group of users (music acionados, creators and promotional platforms) aren’t following that many more artists relative to the to total tal amount of new artists signing up up..
(Source: Next Big Sound, 2014: State Of The Industry )
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As a result, the amount amount of extra plays in th thee past year has risen tremen tremendously dously as opposed to the amount of new followers. This doesn’t mean that followers are becoming less important, important, but w what hat it does mean is that mo more re peopl peoplee listen to m music usic on Soundcloud without following the creators. That’s all the more reason to focus on the quality and branding of your content.
Plays & Likes Plays Plays.. Plays .. Views… listens. listens... A All ll the sa same. me. And ever everyon yonee wants loads of them.
A play constitutes constitutes the coun countt of peop people le that ha have ve listen listened ed to your u uploa pload. d. Sound Soundclou cloud d computes these by adding +1 to your track’s play count for every time someone presses the play button. Plays coming from your own account are not counted and they also enforce a system which attempts to disqualify fake plays (based on too many plays coming from the same IP address at once). The play button is the large orange one. Logically. Play count count can bee seen besides tthe he play arrow in the bottom right corner.
Getting many plays is what everyone is af after ter.. From w within ithin the Soundclou Soundcloud d platform, the largest amount of followers come from your followers seeing your activity in their stream (uploading a new track, creating a new set or reposting something). The private sharing trick is another good way to accumulate plays. Additionally, other people can repost your work which then leads to their own followers seeing your sound too. Of course, you should also gather trac from outside the platform. platform. This would be done by posting links to your sound sound to o other ther social media websi websites, tes, getting o on n blogs, the logical steps really. Your Soundcloud player can also be embedded on websites, both by yourself and others. others. M More ore on that late later. r.
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Likes Marking a track as a favo favorite rite is done by ‘liking’ it in SC. The hear heartt icon in the bottom right corner of tracks shows the ‘like’ counter counter.. Lik Liking ing tracks a allows llows you to manage a list of tracks that you’d want to be able to easily nd again later. You can do this by accessing your ‘likes’. ‘likes’. This list is a also lso publicl publicly yv visibl isible, e, so others could check out the things that you love from your prole.
See that like button? That’s how you like something. I always preach that an important aspect of building a strong Soundclo Soundcloud ud prole, is to actively use your account. Whenever you’re on the platform, you should make it a habit to log in to your account, so that you can actually favorite the content that stands out to you you - and so you can spread the love by commen commenting. ting. Over time, this will w ill turn your account account into a reso resource urce as a music lib library, rary, bu butt will also bring in listeners as you you’re ’re actually following, liking and commenting on the stu that t hat you love.
Find the tracks that you favorit favorited ed yourself, by being logged in a and nd then selecting ‘Collection’ from the top menu. Once clicked, the overview menu will show you a collection of all your sounds, playlists and artists ar tists that you follow. follow. The other tabs a are re self-explanatory.
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Y You ou can nd the sounds tha thatt another use userr likes by navigatin navigating g to their p prole role and selecting the ‘View All’ tab besides their liked-tracks shortlist.
Comments The commenting functionality of SC allows you to give feedback on something. A way to interact interact with a artists rtists and their music. What sets SC apart from other social platforms here, is that you’re able to place timed comments on the actual waveform player of a track. When other people play the track and cross that time point, your comment comment w will ill pop up.
In the old version of Soundcloud, there were still general comments (who did not appear on a certain time point on a track’s waveform). These have been removed in the renewed version of SC.
Placing a timed comment is easy. You play a tune, select a point in the waveform player at which you want to place it, write wr ite something in the appearing text form and press enter. Voila.
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Like with w ith most things, there’s som somee etiquette surrounding this. A well thought ou outt and formulated formula ted comment can help foster a relationshi relationship p with another artist. A weak one can make you seem like a shallow spammer.
Whenever Whenev er writing a comment, y you ou sho should uld always try and add valu value. e. Simp Simply ly saying any short form of ‘this is good’ or ‘this is bad’ is absolutely useless. I mean, sure it’s reinforcing reinforcin g for an ar artist tist to hear you like the track, and sure they’ll be happy with receiving a comment, but that doesn’t make you stand out. Say something insightful…. Like a particular par ticular break, d drop, rop, or ele element ment?? Let it be known. Hate a specic part? Make it known.
Now, you’re probably thinking that it’d be pointless to comment unless you have something positive to say. say. This is not always the case. An A n insightful commen commentt of constructive criticism, or even targeted negativity negativity can ca n be of value for an ar artist. tist. It also stands out from the other commen c omments ts and is more response provoking provoking..
Avoid doing this Expressing true hate. Always add value. Constructive criticism all the way! Spamming. Do not ask other people to listen to your tracks in the comments. If you want to achieve achieve this, yo your ur best bet is to write insigh insightful tful comments or tto o start a dialog through messaging. Posting links to your own stu in other people’s work. Note: The amount of comments comments you can place in a cer certain tain period of time is limited. SC is very strict on this to prevent prevent excessive spamming, which used to be a big big issue. IIt’ t’ss recommended to never leave more than 20 comments within 24 hours and to leave three minutes in between bet ween of these. Copy pasting ve iden identical tical ccommen omments ts w within ithin seconds will wil l 99.99 99.99% % of the time result in a communica communicative tive ban. These exist in increasing weight.
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Messaging SC is a community. As you now by know, you can communicate by people indirectly through commenting and liking their tracks. But, there’s a more personal way… messaging. Messaging in SC is like sending emails within the platform itself. This is a great g reat way to get in touch with people and to foster relationships. I have seen many collaborations and remixes come to life from contacts that simply started on SC messaging.
Y You ou can access your messag messages es inbox by cli clicking cking the enve envelope lope b button utton in th thee right corner of the top menu, then clicking ‘view all messages’.
In your inbox, you you can review rev iew all the messages you have received and sent. Both are indexed in the left column.
The power of Soundcloud’s messaging platform is that you can use it to send tracks along with your messages - both those that are uploaded publicly and privately. Users in turn receive r eceive these messages with a v visual isual player as if they were looking at the track in their own stream. See the screenshot above fo forr an example example..
This makes SC messages a per perfect fect way to get feedback on your track or to submi submitt tracks to blogs, labels and taste-makers. We’ve We’ve been successfully successf ully using this method to send our upcoming release to tastemakers in a specic scene, asking for their feedback and support. support. The response rates on Soundclo Soundcloud ud are very good as big artists are now
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adopting the platform to discover new content and engage with their audience - and it’s often easier to get a hold of them here than via email. A big tip to increase yo your ur odds of getting a response response,, is to send y your our rst message without any any links or attachmen attachments. ts. Simp Simply ly state that you love so someone meone’’s music an and d ask for permission to send music. Big Big ar artists tists and labels often want to streamli streamline ne their submissions. As you can see in the screenshot above, where we redirect a submissio submissions. submission n to our demo page on our website. Regardless, our experiences with w ith this sstrategy trategy have been very positive.
There are two ways to send messages. The rst is via the ‘create new’ button button in your inbox, which triggers a pop-up in which you can type ty pe a username (will show a dropdown if you’ve already followed a user), compose your message, and can add a track. If you want to to message an artist you hav haven’ en’tt follo followed wed yet, go tto o their prol prolee page and cli click ck the envelope icon below their prole image. A powerful trick you should should be aware o off is that yo you u can embed any track in a m message, essage, because as soon as you paste a sharing link in the message message Soundcl Soundcloud oud will extract and embed the player. This means that you can include any public track, or any private track for which you have the private sharing link (a private link has the following format - https:/ https:///soundcloud.com/ soundcloud.com/ar artistna tistname/ me/track trackname/ name/s-Zp8XG s-Zp8XG). ).
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Theoretically,, this means that you could create a ra Theoretically random ndom accoun account, t, to spam messages with the sounds from your your actual account, w which hich I abso absolut lutely ely advise against - as peop people le will hate you for for it.
A good message is one one that provokes provokes respo response… nse… that crea creates tes a dialog. U Use se it with a goal in mind, that goes beyond saying ‘hey I make great music too, check out my track’. In the early days of Soundcl Soundcloud oud this method worked, howeve howeverr w with ith the increased security on the platform platform and the big amount of messages that successful artists ar tists receive, this is no longer the way to success. It is however, a marvelous way to get feedback and establish relationships - if you use it properly.
Messaging Etiquette I have drafted a list of message subjects subjects that you can use to establish conta contact ct w with ith other creators. Even if it isn’t your goal to receive feedback on a particular track, well-phrased messages that give praise are great ways of drawing people’s attention. Asking specic (technical) (technical) questio questions ns Ask about the the type of DA DAW W, plu plugins gins or sample p packs. acks. Give specic praise If someone someone inspired you with a par particular ticular track, send them a detailed letter of praise. If it’s genuine, it’ll likely provoke response.
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Inquire about a collaboration If you like someone’s sound, messaging can be a great way to pitch working together sometime. Make sure you only do this with people that are musically compa compatible. tible. Thanking active fans for their suppo support rt When you you discover that specic peo people ple ha have ve been liste listening ning to yo your ur music a lo lot, t, it can be very rewarding to compliment compliment them on iit. t. They lo love ve it wh when en you do that.
Restricting Messages Y You ou can restrict incoming messag messages es to come so solely lely from the people y you ou fo follow llow.. This is a feature that is mostly used by bigger artists, art ists, labels and brands, to lter out the noise noise To enable this feature, go to your settings. Then proceed to privacy.
After which you can opt for ‘M ‘Messaging essaging Settings --> > Only peopl peoplee that I fo follow’ llow’..
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Note: Soundcloud Soundcl oud is closely monitoring the messaging system, especially for messages that contain urls that go outside of their platform. platform. Limit messaging to a maximum of 15 messages a day with 5 minutes between messages. If you cross these boundaries and do get agged for abusive behavior, behavior, stricter limits will be applied to your account - with the eventual penalty being a ban.
Reposting Reposting is a marvelous new function within the new Soundclou Soundcloud, d, that encourages sharing between co-creators and by fans. It allows you to re-publish someone else’s upload on your own timeline, as if it were a sound of your own, and pushes it to the streams of all your followers. All the statistics that are gathered on on the repost are contributed contributed ttowards owards the original upload. Meaning that whenever someone likes or plays a repost on your prole, these likes and plays are added to that of the original upl upload. oad. Users can a also lso repost someone else’ss repost, which ma else’ makes kes them repost the original sound themselves. Play Playlists lists ca can n also be reposted. A repost does not not show the original uplo upload ad date in th thee timeframe, bu butt instead disp displays lays the time since the track has been reposted. This can sometimes cause a little litt le confusion - but now you know.
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Reposting is a truly remarkable feature as it has added a whole new dimension of sharing to Soundcloud. It works because it enables creators, whom have built audiences by pushing pushing conte content nt in the their ir own style, can now curate external conten contentt to that same audience. audi ence. As long as the style of the reposted conte content nt is w within ithin the fra frame me of what the audience audi ence will like, the reponse is great. It’s It’s being used in a variety of ways. From ar artists tists reposting tracks tthat hat they like, to promotional channels (many of which used to be solely on YouTube before this introduction) that repost music within one style, like deep house, to record labels and artists whom can now upload each other’ other’ss uploads of a specic release, r elease, so that the trac and plays are nicely distributed. It allows people to benet from each other’s audiences.
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There are a number of tricks with w ith which you can get the most out of reposting. I’ll outline those below, but before we go there, you should understand that in order not to oend your audience with your reposting behavior, make sure you restrict your reposting behavior to a reasonabl reasonablee pace. O Our ur exper experience ience shows the most interaction with either one one upl upload oad or repost a day day.. If you have to d do o two, space th them em out nicely one at 15:00 and another at 19:00.
The reposting trick What I am about about to explain explain you no now w is a very valuabl valuablee and useful trick.
It starts with w ith understanding ho how w reposts work. Like I explained, whenever you repost something, that content appears on your prole and on the streams of all your followe followers. rs. The stream of a user displays all the uploads and reposts of the people that they follow, in an order that displays the newest content on top and the oldest at the bottom. Most active Soundcloud Soundcloud users follow many peopl peoplee and as a result their strea stream m is a quickly moving stream of content. Tracks are only visible for as long as there isn’t other content to push it down the stream. The more active a user is, the more likely that content conte nt will pass their strea stream m quickly. quickly. Now, whenever you un-repost something, the content immediately disappears from your prole prole - and from the streams of yo your ur follow followers. ers. This opens up a major opportunity: which is to repost that content again, placing it again on top of your prole, and on top of the streams of your followers, as if it were brand new conten content. t.
Wee have very successfully used this strategy to direct a lot of trac tto W o our releases. Wee do so by eng W engaging aging a numbe numberr of accoun accounts ts to repost, unun-repost repost and repost ag again, ain, a particular track on a da daily ily basis - ideally around peak time (1 (18: 8:00 00 CET / 12: 12:00 00 EST). In some scenarios this will w ill be for a track upl upload oad for our label, wh where ere we ask the ar artist tist to do this daily dai ly for a week. In other scenarios, say for EPs with remixers, we can invol involve ve multiple multi ple artists and sometimes even blogs and other labels.
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Many promotional promotional channels, bi bigger gger artists and labels will also use th this is functionality to support suppo rt a an n ar artist tist temporarily temporarily.. As they do not want to pollute their timeline with reposts permanently, they often repost something for 1-2 days, then removing it, to later repost something again. Many of our partners always have two reposts on the top of their timeline and never more. This way, way, they ccan an show support without making their content oer chaotic.
Groups In Soundcloud, Soundcloud, groups are pools of people to which music can be shared. Only members membe rs of a g group roup can share music to it, and they’re also the only ones who can hear all the music that’s been shared to the group.
Usually, groups are focused on one specic genre or subject. For example you would often see genre related groups such as ‘Dark Dubstep’ or ‘Melodic Techno’. As for subjects, groups can be used to centralize c entralize music for a specic purpose, such as a remix contest or a record label submission pool.
There are two types of groups, unmodera unmoderated ted and moderated. A moderat moderated ed group has a moderator (usually the creator) who has to approve the track submissions before they become available available to the gro group up and iits ts members. O Once nce a track is ap approved, proved, the account account submitting it becomes a contributor. Moderation of a group is a good way to reduce spam and to curate its contents. Unmoderated groups allow people to post tracks to groups without any restrictions. restr ictions.
As I am writing wr iting this, the functio functionality nality surrounding groups is severely severely awed. Wi With th Soundcloud’s recent changes, users now look to their stream to see new content. However, in the current state, content shared to groups are only visible on the actual url of the group - as if it were an account prole. Sharing content to a group does not push the content to the streams of followers of that group. As a result, people are only joining groups groups to share con content tent to them - an and d nobody is list listening. ening.
Accessing Groups In the old version of Soundcloud, groups were accessible from the main menu. With the
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newer version, you have to access groups from the search bar. To do so, you just type in a search query (such as a specic genre or subject) and go to the ‘groups’ tab.
Y You ou can also view the groups you are a me member mber of b by y clicking on yo your ur prole thumb thumbnail nail in the top menu and then selecting selecting groups. All groups you are a member of will be displayed here and you’re also able to perform a search from here.
How to use groups Y You ou can discover mus music ic that yo you u like by jo joining ining the grou groups ps focused on ge genres nres that you’re you ’re ffond ond o of. f. Bu Butt more im importantly portantly,, you can share sou sounds nds to the grou groups ps that you are a member of.
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A free account can share a track to to a single grou group, p, whe whereas reas pro and pro unlimit unlimited ed accounts can share with w ith up to 75 groups within 24 hours. After Af ter those 24 hours, you can simply submit it to more.
The trick to doing this with w ith large impact, is to join groups that are very related to the style of the track that you’re pushing and that they must have a signicant amount of members. You should look for groups that have more than 15.000 members. Particularly interesting are the groups with relatively few uploads and a lot of members, as it’ll then take longer for your track to get snowed under by newer material. To add a track to a group, click the ‘add to group’ button on the sound. Pay attention when doing doing this with private tracks tho though, ugh, as these will automatically automatically become pu public blic once submitted.
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When uploa uploading ding a new soun sound, d, use the ‘s ‘share hare to groups groups’’ trick after switching it tto o pub public, lic, to quickly attract more trac to the upload. upload. Any reposting that you can arrange via partners or other accounts you host can also help create that initial kick.
Removing a track from a group gr oup is don donee in the same w way ay as adding it. Just click the group. Once it turns ‘black’ again instead of faded grey, it’s removed.
Y You ou can view what groups a tra track ck has been add added ed to, by adding //groups groups to the eend nd of the track’s url. For example: http://www.soundcloud.com/artistname/trackname/ groups.
Creating your own group Currently you are not able to create a group within the new interface of Soundcloud. Of course, you can still do it the old way though.
or by switching sw itching Y You ou do this by g going oing to tto o this link: http://soundcloud.com/groups/new or to the old Soundcloud (press ‘More’ in the top menu of the new version and click the ‘switch back to classic Soundcloud’ link on the left side) and going to ‘groups’. The ‘create new group’ button is available on the right hand side there.
There’ss little benet to rrunning There’ unning a g group roup at the momen moment, t, as tracks get overrun so quickly with it’s it’s current dynamics. The lack of discussion d doesn’ oesn’tt make it m more ore useful eithe either. r. The primary purpose for running a group would be for a specic purpose, such as a remix contest or for label submissions. For an example of how we used a Soundcloud group to host a remix competition, look at our group here: https://soundcloud.com/groups/san-holo-cosmos-ep-remix-competition
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3.3 - Spotlight Tab Spotlight is a feature that is only accessible to Soundcloud Pro and Pro Unlimited accounts.
It allows you to curate a selection of sounds and playlists at the top of your prole, making it the rst content that your prole’s visitors see. You can use it to showcase your most well-receiv well-received ed or most recen recentt releases, or tto o attach pla playlists ylists that sho showcase wcase a specic type ty pe of conten content; t; podcasts, original releases, free downloads, whatever whatever..
To access and edit your spotlight, go to your public page (click the thumbnail on the top menu and go to prole), then you’ll see it immediately at the top of your stream. Then click ‘Edit Spotlight’ on the right hand side and add your sounds and playlists of choice. Sometimes Soundcloud’s track indexation is very slow and you’ll only be able to nd content by writing out the sound or playlist’s name. You can sort content by dragging and dropping it once it’s been added to the spotlight.
When considering considering what conte content nt to a add dd to yo your ur spotlight, y you ou sho should uld think of it as the rst musical impression you want to give a listener. I suggest adding your most recent release on top, followed followed by at max two sounds or sets that have been very well received. That way you drive plays to your latest release, whilst also a lso establishing social proof and displaying your best content. Refrain from adding too much cont content ent to your spotlight or having playlists with too much content content in there, as peopl peoplee w will ill never go through all tthat hat stu before reaching your other other sounds.
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There are a numbe numberr of strategical uses of the playlists. One is by including other people’s sounds in your own playlists (as explained in chapter 3.2 - sets). Record labels and artists often use this to share trac, by including each other’ other’ss sounds in their own playlists and then sticking these playlists into their spotlight selections. Another opportunity opportunity is to show showcase case uploa uploads ds by blogs and p promoti romotional onal channels. O One ne of my acts, Ducked Ape, has racked up a number of very well listened to uploads on a selection of dierent promotional promotional channels. Even this is their own ow n music, these exceptionally well received sounds weren’t uploaded on their own channel, yet by using the playlist and spotlight trick they’re able to showcase them as if it were their own.
3.4 - Embeddin Em bedding g With embedding embedding you can int integrate egrate yo your ur sounds and sets elsew elsewhere here on th thee web, lik likee on your website or elsewhere. elsewhere. A All ll the plays and trac generat generated ed v via ia those embeds a are re directed back to the original upload. These embedded players players also go by the name of ‘widgets’ and are popularly used by artists to showcase their music on their websites and by blogs to showcase music and make it directly d irectly playable. Embedded players allow people that interact with these players to log in to the
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Soundcloud API, so if they ‘favorite’ a track via a player, a pop-up comes up that asks them to log in with their own ow n Soundclo Soundcloud ud account - and any likes register within the platform of Soundcloud itself.
With the latest latest updat updates, es, Sound Soundclou cloud d has created a beau beautiful tiful new HTML5 player player.. The biggest form form is a little big, but iitt nicely sh showcases owcases your rel release’ ease’ss art artwork work an and d is a good way to draw attenti attention. on.
How to embed? Y You ou can embed things by cli clicking cking on the ‘‘share’ share’ bu button tton of a so sound. und. Then go to the ‘embed’ tab.
There are two types of HTML5 widgets. One is the visual player, the other is a list player. The rst draws more attention, the latter is more space ecient. For all of these players, I recommend that you don’t exceed 400px in height when embedding them and that you keep ‘autoplay’ o. There’s nothing more annoying than a huge widget taking up your full screen, or being scared to death by a track playing out of the blue.
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Y You ou can customize bo both th of the pla players yers at th thee bottom o off the pop-u pop-up, p, whe where re the list pla player yer gives you more features to tweak than the v visual isual player player,, you can select colors of the buttons butto ns and so forth - to ma match tch the desi design gn of your si site. te. When you’ you’ve ve tweaked your widget to your p preferen reference, ce, copy and past pastee the HTML code and integrate it into the HTML code of your site. If you’re a wordpress user, you can also generate a Wordpress shortcode, which is easily integrated once you have the required Wordpress plugin installed to do so. Find my recommendations at the end of this chapter.
Best practices Embedding is a great tool to make your Soundcloud sounds and/or account available on your website website and o other ther social pla platforms. tforms. I suggest in integrating tegrating an embed embed of your ttotal otal SC account onto your website, so that it automatically displays everything on your stream (including the new stu). Use the ‘share’ button below your prole picture on your prole page to do this.
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Also, there are indirect means of embedding. embedding. In Integrating tegrating yo your ur Soundcl Soundcloud oud a account ccount with your Facebook Facebook pag pagee by adding a se separate parate so soundclo undcloud ud tab is a great tool, as iitt allows fans to listen to your music from within Fa Facebook cebook and sends statistics tthrough hrough to your Soundcloud sounds.
Good applications for this are Bandpage (https://www.bandpage.com/ (https://www.bandpage.com/ ) or the ‘Soundcloud Page Tab’ by topdeejays.com topdeejays.com ( (https://topdeejays.com/apps/ https://topdeejays.com/apps/). ).
Wordpress W ordpress P Plugin: lugin: http://wordpress.org/plugins/ /wordpress.org/plugins/soundcloud-shortcode/ soundcloud-shortcode/ http:/
3.5 - Dropbox Soundcloud Soundcl oud has ful fully ly removed the Dropbox functionality from the system. It was apparently over-used for spamming purposes and they have removed it to promote the use of privately privately sharing tracks via the messaging system and to encourag encouragee reposting.
3.6 - Statistics Soundcloud tracks al Soundcloud alll of your prole and sound sound’’s statistics into a single page. This is tthe he statistics page. From there you can track all the data relevant to your conten content, t, tracking followers, follo wers, plays, downloads, reposts, trac sources and more.
If your goal is to truly establish a career in the industry, you have to become able to interpretate these statistics and draw actionable conclusions from them. Seeing what tracks work, which fans listen to you most and what countries and cities you’re most popular are all al l pieces of information that you can use to improve your your brand. From knowing what styles work, to where to look for shows and what release strategies are working, all of this is truly a goldmine. goldmine. Interestingly, the bigger you grow and higher you get in the industry, the more relevant
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data becomes. As the pool of statistics g grows rows to draw informatio information n from, the ‘samp ‘sample le size’ and relevance of that data increases, making your decisions based on that t hat even better informed. One of m my y artists has gathered over millions o off plays and in turn we leveragee his statistics to gure out exactly where to market, how often to release, when leverag to post and more. It helps direct our strategy and marketing eorts.
Soundcloud Soundcl oud oers dierent leve levels ls of insight into statistics based on the ty type pe of account you’re you ’re o on. n. Free users can see plays plays,, likes, downloads and comments, comments, w whereas hereas Pro accounts can see which users are listening to tracks and in what country country.. Pro Unlimited gives you all that, t hat, pl plus us insight into what trac sources are dr driving iving the plays (both tracking sources from inside the Soundcloud platform, and externally, like blogs) and what particular cities you’ you’re re getting plays fro from. m.
Accessing statistics Y You ou can access your statisti statistics cs by clicking on yo your ur account nam namee in the head header er men menu, u, then selecting ‘stats’.
From within the statistics page, you can lter between all the types t ypes of statistics; pla plays, ys, likes, comments, reposts, downloads - which are all found at the top. In the top right r ight corner you can lter between time periods, and in the right hand list you can select to view statistics for particular tracks. At the bottom bottom you can view your ‘‘most most pla played yed tracks’ tracks’,, ‘top coun countries tries and cities’ cities’,, ‘who played play ed the most’ and trac sources via ‘websites’ and ‘ap ‘apps. ps.
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Y You ou sho should uld acquain acquaintt yourself tto o this page and get used to checking statistics statistics on a monthly basis. Also it is a good habi habitt to review statistics for new tracks often, particularly when on a Pro Unlimited account, to see what sources are driving dr iving trac to your uploads. We often discover new reposts by major artists, features in the Soundcloud ‘explore’ tab and blog articles that we were unaware of by checking these.
How to leverage statistics? Checking momentum As discussed in chapter 2.4, creating momentum momentum throu through gh uplo uploading ading consiste consistently ntly is essential if you want to quickly grow your fan base. By viewing view ing your overall plays on all your tracks over over the span of m multipl ultiplee months, y you ou can track this. As suggested in 2.4, ideally you upload upload tracks every ttwo wo weeks when starting out. When pl plays ays on the rst track start diminishing d iminishing and with it the hype surrounding your prole, you top it with a new track and pick up with a higher base of fans to gather plays plays from.
Discover which tracks work best Using the ‘sounds’ ‘sounds’ tab you can v view iew the statistics of specic tracks and a nd also compare them to one another. Of course you have into take account here that some tracks have been online for a longer period. Try and gure out which tracks have gotten the most plays in a certain timespan, say a week. Then try and look at which tracks have relatively many favorites and comments in comparison to plays. Those are the ones
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your fans like best. You You can use this knowledg knowledgee to give the them m more of w what hat they wan want. t.
Find your biggest fans Under the ‘people’ tab, a ranking of the users that have played your sounds the most has been displayed on the right side. You should consider these users extremely valuablee as they will be the ones that te valuabl tell ll their friends about about you o orr buy yo your ur merchandise or tickets to your shows. I recommend getting in touch with your biggest ten fans. Check out their prole and try tr y nd their Twitter or email addresses. If you can’t nd those, drop them a message on SC. Tell them how much you appreciate them listening to your music. Additionally, there’s other things you can do with such dedicated fans…. One of the acts I work with have actually oered their biggest fan a free performance, which resulted in a live performance at a classy house party in a penthouse. Trust me when I say that they will remember you for a long time, and before even bigger fans. Being generous and getting personal is magnicent for building commitment.
Where do they love love you most? The ‘people’ ‘people’ tab displays a ranking list with the countries from which you receive the most trac. Take a good look at the top top ve countries and try tr y to think of why you are getting plays from there. Your Your home country wil willl almost always be in the rst spot, that’ss logical, as your local and bef that’ befriended riended fanbase is there. However spots 2-5 can be essential to extending extending your mark marketing eting strategy strategy.. Why are they fo following llowing you you?? Once you’ve you ’ve gured that o out, ut, you you need to gure out how you you can activate those ffans ans more. Use their location for targeted Facebook ads, or focus more on getting your music on blogs that that are from those countries. Looking ffor or places tto o perform could also be a good idea, as you apparently have a relatively large group to activate there.
Where is your your trac coming from? from? Using the ‘sources’ ‘sources’ tab you can identify identify tthe he most popular sources of your trac. A Are re there any odd sources driving you a lot of trac that you didn’ didn’tt know about? Do something with it. Get in touch with them. Leverage the exposure ex posure more. Also, it’s a good way to check whether your your own social media is working. Are you getting trac from your Facebook and Twitter posts? Verify this. If you aren’t, you have to upgrade your ballgame there. there. In Interlink terlink eve every rything. thing.
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Use these strategies to leverage this data into actionable knowledge. Figure out where to play, play, who your fans are, what sources a are re driv driving ing trac and most importantly whether you you’re ’re o on n the right track tto o maintaining momentum. momentum. Once you have momentum, combine the insights from Soundcloud with your Google Analytics, Analy tics, Fa Facebook cebook and Y You ouT Tube data tto o determine exa exactly ctly what’ what’ss working, wha whatt people are responding to and how you can best act to maintain that momentum. Y You ou know wha whatt they say: “Y “You ou can’ can’tt manage wha whatt you d don’ on’tt measure. measure.””
3.7 – Accounts Soundcloud oers multiple account levels, based on your subscription and possible distribution lock-in. The levels are: Free, Pro, Pro Unlimited and the recently introduced Premier.
By now you should should real realize ize that having a Pro or higher account is essential if you want to thrive on the platform. The added value of having a spotlight, more upload space, ability to share to more groups, the perceived ‘professionality’ of the orange logo and being able able to swap out a audio udio in u uploa ploads ds without losin losing g statistics, are all important too tools ls in your arsenal.
The dierent levels are elaborated upon below, with Free being the model instantly available to anyone that creates an account, Pro and Pro Unlimited being the paid subscription subscripti on and Premier the fre freshly shly introduced ‘invite only’ account level - allowing users to monetize their accounts and providing large visual v isual banners. Soundcloud Premier is further discussed in Chapter 3.8, as it’s an extensive topic which goes hand-in-han hand-in-hand d with the introdu introduction ction of m monetizati onetization on of Sou Soundclo ndcloud ud via advertisements.
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Subscription types Free •
3 total upload hours
• •
100 downloads/sound Unlimited Unlimited set creation
•
Some stats (see the amount of plays, downloads, download s, comments and favorites of your
tracks)
Pro Pr o •
6 total upload hours (please note: this does not add an additional 6 hours to your
account, but gives you 6 hours total) • 1,000 downloads/sound •
Unlimited Unlimited set creation
•
More stats (count plays, downloads, download s, comments and likes, plus details detai ls on what
counties your listeners are in and who they are) •
Spotlight feature (highlight up to 5 sounds or sets at the top of your prole)
•
Quiet Mode feature (hide comments comments and stats on your tracks & make comments comments
private)
Pro Unlimited •
Unlimited upload hours (single sound le sizes are limited to 2GB and total sound
upload time per week is limited to 30 hours) •
Unlimited Unlimited downloads
•
Unlimited Unlimited set creation
•
Pro stats (see where your listeners are, and where your sounds are being
embedded, linked to and posted around the web) •
Spotlight feature (highlight up to 5 sounds or sets at the top of your prole)
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•
Quiet Mode feature (hide comments comments and stats on your tracks & make comments comments
private) •
Pro support (prioritized (prioritiz ed customer support help) help)
Pro and Pro Unlimit Unlimited ed users have ability to download and replace les, and add tracks to up to 75 groups.
3.8 - Monetization Monetization & P Premier remier Soundcloud Soundcl oud has been operating within a legal grey zone for a long time, allowing users to upload upload non-cleared copyrighted conten contentt such as unocial remixes and bootlegs, al alll without any any form of rem remunerati uneration on to rightsrights-hold holders. ers. IIt’ t’ss won them th thee favor o off many artists and listeners, to the distress of major labels and publishers. publishers. With the platform’ platform’ss explosive growth, contin continuous uous greygrey-area area use could not continu continuee indenitely. They reported over 175 million monthly plays in December 2014 and with year long talks with major labels labels and law-sui law-suitt threats, this nally lead tto o the introduction of a solution: On Soundcloud.
On Soundcloud. With On Soundclou Soundcloud, d, the pla platform tform is introdu introducing cing its mo monetizatio netization n system. Similar to what we’re we’re a accustomed ccustomed with on Y You ouT Tube, they will be displaying adv advertisements ertisements o on n and throughout their platform. In order to implement these features, they have introduced a new account level Soundcloud Soundcl oud Premier - which is g granted ranted to a selection of partners, allowing al lowing them to qualify for monetiza monetization tion and to unlock new features. The roll-out of these features is a gradual process and Soundclo Soundcloud ud has selected around 20 distributors and a number of labels and artists ar tists to test and integrat integratee the new functionality with. These distributors in turn are able to activate their clients (artists, (artists, labels) as Soundcloud Premier users. I expect full-market adoption throughout the fourth quarter of 2015.
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Monetization. Premier partners can enable specic content for monetization, on which audio advertisements advertiseme nts will be run. These are short snippets snippets that wi will ll be played at the start of the upload, and can also appear on the externally embedded players of the content. Besides these content related related ads, Soundcl Soundcloud oud will also d display isplay strictly advertising related audio-ads in the sidebar of their platform.
The display of these advertisements is solely restricted to activated Premier partner content, and is currently only visible in the USA. Soundcloud is testing their monetization mone tization system there and gradually expanding to other territories, to eventually allow rights-holders worldwide to monetize their content. Currently advertised brands include Red Bull, Jaguar, Sonos and Squarespace.
Premier partners can activate content for monetization when they have received permission from the composi composition tion and publishing rights-hol rights-holders. ders. These rrights ights are dierent from those necessary for monetization on YouTube, because the royalty that Soundcloud pays out is a Digital Public Performance Royalty. In many cases, Premier partners can receive these permissions by talking to the original writer of the track, whom if not not represen represented ted by a pu publishe blisher, r, will have con control trol of both the compositi composition on and publishing rights. For more advanced artists art ists w with ith publishing represen representation tation,, the permission must be granted by both the ar artist tist and the pub publisher lisher..
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Soundcloud Premier. Premier partners have access to all the functionality of the traditional Pro Unlimited subscriptions, subscriptio ns, together with v visual isual proles, tthe he ability to monetize content, in-dep in-depth th statistics and ability to control content geographically. Subscription fees are also eliminated, making partnership essentially free - except for the commission one typically pays to a distributor or Soundcloud itself. The currently active Premier partners have been invited and ingested via the selected distribution and label partners, with the exception of a few artists that have been directly invited through Soundclou Soundcloud. d. In order to qualify for a Premier partnership, you should connect with one of the exclusivee distributors that have the ability to oer the service. Deals are ty exclusiv typically pically an extension of those oered by YouTube advertising networks. Do not give out more than 30% of your advertising revenue. Wee at He W Heroic roic ha have ve been partnered with The District District (also (also known as edmDistrict), whom have have served us well as both a Y You ouT Tube netwo network rk and no now w as a Soundcl Soundcloud oud Premier distributor - if you’re in doubt with whom to sign up with, I’d recommend you give them a look.
3.9 - Apps App is short short for app applicatio lication. n. Bu Butt let’ let’ss hope yo you u already knew that.
Soundcloud has been actively improving and updating their latest mobile apps to
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coincidee w coincid with ith the new changes of ttheir heir websit website. e. The result is a number of stunning mobile apps, both for iOS and Android, which have helped boost the website from something solely solely for conten contentt creators, to a real streaming competitor of services like Spotify. I’m an iPhone guy and have really enjoyed building my account’s collection of favorite sounds and playlists, which I listen to on the go.
Crucial to successfully using Soundcloud is to actively use your account while you’re on the platform. Whenever your using Soundcloud you should be liking, commenting and reposting content content whilst logged in to your own account. Be an active member of the community. Having these good mobile apps makes this a lot easier. I therefore suggest that you download the relevant mobile mobile app for your device and start sta rt getting familiar with using Soundcloud Soundcloud as a streaming service whilst your traveling. traveling.
Download the mobile apps here: https://soundcloud.com/mobile In the past a stand-alone app for OSX existed, however they halted it’s development to focus on the browser website and mobile apps. There is a decent third-party app available for free though, which you can check out here: http://salomvary.github.io/ soundcleod/
Soundcloud encourages developers to make third-party applications that integrate with Soundcloud’s API. Some integrate by allowing you to record samples and upload those, whilst others are simple simple beat beat-making -making machines and o others thers are sample pads with which you can make beats. Interesting Interesting stu to take a llook ook at. Find all third-party third-part y apps here: http://soundcloud.com/apps
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4 - Best Practices In this chapter we discuss best practices. Meth Methods ods and tactics used by the best performers to get the maximum ma ximum results. Tricks that separate the boys from f rom the men.
We’ll discuss the following: •
What constitutes a nal product. product.
•
How to release a track independently and which tools you can use to get the most
out of it. •
How to release a track with a record label, from getting signed to building a release
schedule. •
How to get supported by music blogs, where to nd them and how to persuade
them. •
The importance importa nce of networking and how to do it.
4.1 - The Final Product Let’s talk about perfectionism. About a ‘nished’ product.
What do you you think constitutes a nish nished ed product product?? When do you you consi consider der a track tto o be ready to u uploa pload? d?
Y Your our standards better be high. As discussed earlier earlier,, your SC prole prole and any oth other er prole you have on the web is where people get their impression of you from. And many times it will wil l be their rst impressio impression. n. That rst impression n needs eeds to be g great. reat.
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Otherwise you might lose a poten potential tial fan.
How to maintain a high standard?
Quality over quantity Y You ou sho should uld set a bar fo forr yourself tha thatt represen represents ts the minimum lev level el of quality quality a track needs to have before you can put it out. It’s better to release two great songs in two months, mon ths, than four mediocre ones, or than ttwo wo great ones and ttwo wo mediocre ones. There’s a saying in the music industry that goes “you’re as good as your last release”. Crazy, but true. Take the Lady Gaga example we discussed earlier. She was at the top of the charts and dominating the game. The time she took to follow up her releases w with ith her latest album was too long and above above all the record was mediocre. Now all tthe he hype has gone. The method we use is this: select three tracks of your idols. If you music doesn’t approach 80% of that quality, it’s not good enough. If none of your music makes the cut, you are better o putting in more work in the studio and honing your craft, than polluting your brand with music that just isn’t good enough to build success upon yet. Be critical of yourself. Don’t judge your best friend’s opinions on face value. They’ll tell you your your musi musicc rocks because they want to be ni nice. ce. Y You ou need tto o hon honestly estly judg judgee and act accordingly. Put out only the best.
Do not upload unfinished work Proactively curate your audience’s impression of you by only publicizing nished, mixed and mastered content. Use Soundcloud’ Soundcloud’ss private feature to share un unnished nished material with co-creators and friends, making sure to disable embedding. Get a second opinion on tracks before you call them nished nished Before you publicize music, gather opinions of musicians that you respect.
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One piece of advice that has served me well in life, is to only accept feedback and advice from people whom are better than me at the thing I want to achieve. So ask your idols. People Peop le that are clearly bet better ter artists than you. Y You ou can only take y your our friend friend’’s opini opinions ons at fa face ce value if yo you u know them tto o be outspo outspoken, ken, critical and honest of your wor work. k. This is rare, and when it occurs it’ it’ss only something your closest friends friends can do.
Invest in good mixing and mastering Every successful professional professional release has been thorou thoroughly ghly mi mixed xed and mastered, often in big studios with expensive equipment. If you are serious about building building a career from your music, this is an aspec aspectt of nalizing a release that you can not igno ignore. re. Yo Your ur music needs to be mixed and mastered well. With the advent advent o off DA DAWs, Ws, productio productional nal tools and iZoto iZotope pe Ozone Ozone,, this has become easier to do yourself - and cheaper to get done professionally. If you’re a producer, hone your craft and reference reference how y your our mus music ic sounds tto o that of p professio rofessional nal releases that you admire. If you’ you’re re not, n nd d a good au audio dio engineer tto o take care of this. Ask around, many bands and producers will w ill know a go-to guy guy..
Internalize Inte rnalize a all ll of tthese hese points. This is basic quality control. Non Nonee of our label releases go out without matching all of these. Open yourself up to criticism, cut out all the noise and release only the best. be st. And don’t be hestitant to invest in making your songs sound even better. If you do this right, you’ll be miles ahead of the curve. cur ve. Get your music in the best condition it can possibly be. People notice.
Mixing & Mastering Good mixing mix ing and mastering of music can make a worl world d of dierence in sound. It can make the OK sound amazing. Or terrible.
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Our recommended work-ow work-ow for this is to attentively mix down all a ll stems after af ter nishing a composition. Once you are set on the arrangement, double-check the nal mixdown and check equalizatio equa lization n for a spacio spacious us and cleanly sound. Check for conicting frequency ranges, cluttering too many sounds together or going overboard with wetness and reverb.
Once mixed, proceed to mastering, a process that adds volume, volume, body and dynamics to a track - which can ca n be done using software such as iZotope Ozone or hardware gear. Y You ou sho should uld always master y your our releases, regardless of w whether hether they are re releases leases or not not.. Actively curate curate your au audience’ dience’ss impressio impression n of you you.. A good master can be attained via software as well as hardware, and you should should realize that getting good mastering done does not need to be expensive. Try investigating Y You ouT Tube tut tutorials orials to impro improve ve your o own wn skills, or invest in getting maste mastering ring done by a good engineer. engineer. Many labels facilitate their own mastering services, ser vices, often advancing the costs and deducting these from future artist royalties. If you’re unacquainted with any good engineers, you could check out Heroic Audio Audio,, our audio audi o production ho house. use. Our engineers do all tthe he mastering for every everything thing we put out on Heroic, as well as releases on signicant parties such as Armada and CR2.
Audio engineering tips Provided below are a selection of essential tips for good mixing and mastering.
Credits for these audio engineering tips go to Tim T im van Doorne, professi professional onal Audio Engineer educated at the SAE Institute.
General: •
Label / color / name everything every thing properly because eventually eventually it will save time ti me as big
projects tend to get messy. •
Avoid clipping. not in sy synth, nth, not in mixer, not in master.
•
(internal (internal clipping clipping in the digital domain is often not harmful) harmfu l)
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Mixing: •
With mixing, rst EQ then compress compress (so (so you don’t don’t compress compress frequencies you you don’ don’tt
want)) then use auxiliary/bus/ want auxiliary/bus/send for reverb reverb and delay delay plugins. This way way you have easy access to both dry and a nd wet sounds when adjustments adjustments will be made later on. on. Make sure that when you use an auxiliary, auxilia ry, bus or send to have the dry/we dry/wett knob all the way on wet.
A saying in the audio audio engineering in industry dustry is “rather cu cutt than boost” when it comes to equalization. EQ can be used to cut o unwanted frequenci frequencies. es. Always cut o low frequencies that you don’t need. And to give slight boosts in certain frequencies to create a certain sound. Compression Comp ression is used to compress big sounds into a smaller package. This makes the softer sounds louder (and the louder sounds softer). It reduces the dynamic dierences within a sound. Compressors Compressors often ha have ve contro controls ls for a attack ttack and release tha thatt vary the rate at which compression is applied and its smoothness.
Have the main output of your nal mix around -10dB so there is enough headroom for mastering.
Mastering: •
Mastering, is applying the nal touches touches before commercial release. With mastering
you make the track louder louder,, more clear, clear, and and possibly take out the mistakes in the mix. •
Most people use the following followi ng when mastering: master ing: EQ, reverb, multiband compressor,
exciter, stereo widener, and of course a maximizer / limiter. •
Mastering equalization is used to take ta ke out mistakes in tthe he mix (x frequencies that
are too soft or loud). •
Mastering Masteri ng reverb: applying a little litt le bit of reverb over the master of the track can
glue everything together nicely. •
Multiband compressors are often used to compress multiple frequency ranges (the
bands). bands ). Making it possible to create create a slightly tighter tighter and louder louder nal product. product. •
An exciter exciter is used to add harmonics, this will give give a certain type of of extra sound to
the track. A ll exciters sound dierently. dierently.
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•
A stereo widener can be used to widen (or narrow) the mix.
•
Finally apply the maximizer maximiz er / limiter. IItt will reduce the dierence in peak level
and RMS (root mean square) level. The peak level is the loudest level in the signal, the RMS level is the actual act ual loudness that you and I can c an hear. Therefore Therefore a limiter / maximizer ma ximizer reduces dynamics but creates loudness in exchange. exchange. In commercial releases tthe he RMS levels are somewhere somewhere between -3 dB and -8 - 8 dB. A perfect balance should be found between loudness loudness and loss in dynamics. •
A great mastering plugin plugin that is easy to use is iZotope’s iZotope’s Ozone 5, which contains all
necessary tools.
4.2 - Releasing Independently There is a choice you can make. Release your music with a label, or do it yourself. Independently.
The latter is becoming more and more attractive for for artists ar tists as there has been a huge rise of websit websites es and techno technology logy to facilitate this. Increasing numbers of artists are distributing their music music themselves or giving it away as ffree ree downloads. Also there t here are more independen independentt record labels tthat hat are using the same tactics.
Physical releases are quickly turning into something of the past. If you’re producing electronic music, music, chances are that your target audience hardly ever purchases a CD. In 2014, revenues revenues derived ffrom rom digital music sales (covering both sales and streams) accounted for nearly 40% of the total revenue of the recorded music industry.
In this chapter, we talk about the dierent ways to put out music independently and how to best execute these. Including free downloads, setting up like-gates, using pay what-you what -you-want -want m methods ethods and nding and dealing with distributo distributors. rs.
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Free Downloads Giving away free downloads is one of the best ways to get exposure and engagem engagement. ent. With the current changes changes in the mu music sic ind industry, ustry, all the new ttech ech start-ups tha thatt give freedom to artists ar tists and tthe he ease of downloading illegally illegally,, it might even be more eective than releasing through a record label.
Soundcloud Downloads Soundcloud gives you the ability to enable ‘downloads’ on a track. Note that it will provide a download for the identical le that you have uploaded, so make sure to upload at least a 320kbps MP3 or 16bit+ 44.1hz .WAV le. I recommend you stick with MP3s as the majority of people don’t care about the added value of a lossless le.
Y You ou can retitle the d description escription tha thatt appears on th thee download b button utton in th thee sound sound’’s settings. People commonly use things like ‘free download’ ‘download’ or ‘support’. Do whatever whatev er you think is instructive. And iitt always hel helps ps to add a pe personal rsonal twist.
The amount of downloads that your sounds get also contribute to the popularity of a track on Soundcloud in general thus making it more likely to appear in people their streams and on the SC ‘explore’ page.
If you are not a pro user, the total number downloads per track is limited to 100. A Pro account caps at 1000 downloads per track and a Pro Unlimited account has unlimited downloads. Y You ou can enab enable le your tra track ck for do download wnload by go going ing int into o it’ it’ss settings and enablin enabling g ‘download’.
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Once enabled, the download button appears at the bottom of a sound.
In the past, users used to annotate the fact that a track t rack was available for download in the track’s title. A release titled ‘Artist Ar tist - Title’ wo would uld then becom becomee ‘‘Ar Artist tist - Title (Free Downloa Download)’ d)’. However Howev er this is becoming a thing of the past. Giv Giving ing away free conten contentt has become a staple of the online marketing of music and rarely do people annotate free download into their titles anymore. Instead only the download buttons are customized.
The download url trick Soundcloud does not allow you to right-click the download button of a track that has downloads enabled. However, there is a way to link to the download directly. Y You ou do this by ad adding ding ‘‘//download download’’ to the en end d of the url of the track. Pasting this link in your browser browser will immediately trigger the do download. wnload. For example:
http://www.soundcloud.com/artist/track_title/download
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When sharing this link, it is smart to use a link shortener shortener so tto o decrease its len length gth and to track how often and from where it’s it’s been clicked. This can ca n be done using services like: ww like: www. w.goo. goo.gl gl / / ww www w.bi .bit.ly t.ly / / tinyurl.com tinyurl.com.. I recommen rec ommend d using using bit. bit.ly ly for for all your shortening services. Set up an account there. It’s an awesome site.
Note: There is a trick which allows you to download every sound uploaded to Soundcloud. This is explained in chapter 5.4.
Like Gating What is like gating Like-to-download and content gates are platforms that allow you to exchange content for social currency. In other words, sites or apps where you can give away downloads for followers on social media.
These services can be pivotal tools to building successful careers on the web and increase in relevance every day. As streaming services ser vices are a re becoming more adop adopted ted and all the consumers transition to YouTube, Soundcloud and Spotify for their music listening, downloads downloads and physi physical cal purchases are becoming less relevant than ever. However many people still like to put MP3s or lossless les on their portable MP3 players or smartphones. And then we’re just talking about the Western World. If we include third world countries in this comparison, there is a huge market of people whom have have yet tto o fully adopt th thee inte internet rnet - let alo alone ne get a access ccess to mobile phon phones es and mobile internet. A market for for digital downloads still exists, howeve howeverr it’ it’ss diminishing in the US, and th thee tendency of people to pay for downloads is decreasing. This opens up a major opportunity for content gates. For creators to exchange downloads for a currency that is stil stilll very relevant to them: social currency. F Followe ollowers rs on Soundcloud, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And the cost of these payments is much lower to consumers than it is to actually pay.
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The result is that many musicians are now giving out their music for likes on social platforms. platfo rms. A And nd the users gladly do it, because it’s better than paying in cash, a and nd they help support support the a artist. rtist. With a proper proper release sched schedule ule and good use o off cont content ent ga gates tes for a se selection lection o off the released content, content, it is become much easier for artists to grow their fanbases and a nd get viral traction. By converting converting a selection o off your new new listene listeners rs to fans, you will grow your fanbase, which has multi multiple ple e eects: ects: it grows the a audience udience which which will listen to your future releases, but also a lso solidies your position in the eyes of professi professionals onals - leading to more bookings and business opportunities. Y You ou can see how usin using g cont content ent ga gates tes prope properly rly will help buil build d your fo foundatio undation n as an artist and helps establish momen momentum. tum.
With our label label Hero Heroic, ic, an exampl examplee of how w wee use cont content ent ga gates tes is the fo following: llowing: On a release that we distribute ocially to all major stores (iTunes, Beatport, Spotify), we also make a selection selection of the tracks availab available le as free downloads with a like-todownload gate. gate. By doing this, a selection of the audience audience wil willl be incenti incentivized vized to buy the full release, r elease, whereas anothe anotherr selection will go for the free downloads. This leads to revenuee and helps boost our social prole. revenu
Our artist San Holo has seen a lot of success with this strategy by giving away his unocial remixes in this manner. As he puts out new content, a selection of the listeners will check out the other stu on his prole and nd his ‘Don’t Touch The
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Classics’ remix series, where he remixes classic 90’ 90’ss hip-hop tracks. All of these are made available available v via ia like-gate and in tturn urn help dr drive ive his social prole tremen tremendously dously..
How the game has changed In the earlier versions of this book, the only prevalent like-to-download gates were those that allowed you to exchange downloads for Facebook likes, Twitter followers or email addresses.
The game has changed now. Facebook has prohibited the download gate and has taken down all the apps that oer the service, whereas the stand-alone Twitter following gate that I spoke about earlier is less used than t han ever. Email list building is still sti ll a big thing. To collect email addresses of fans by giv giving ing them downloads, or to build a list whenev whenever er they make a purchase v via ia a store like Bandcamp Bandcamp.. I love email marketing and am convinced that every ever y artist shoul should d pro-actively build an email list. The reason why is simple. The value of a user whom has given you his email with permission is much much higher than a new like tto o your F Facebook acebook pag page. e. If you send that user a email, it’s going to go straight into his inbox, and if you curate a good mailing strategy, open rates between 40-60% are not uncommon. Whereas with Facebook’s
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new algorithm, less than 15% of fans are likely to see a page’ page’ss posts, eeven ven if the audience is very engaged (high # of ‘talked abouts’). abouts’).
UnlockTHIS A new breed of of conte content nt ga gates tes has risen. Platforms that aggregate dierent social media platforms to gate to. These were initiated to solve the lack of gates for social sites beyond Facebook and Twitter, and have thrived since the ban of Facebook like-to-download apps. Up till the end of 2014, the best content-gate was Click.DJ, which allows users to create campaigns with embedded players of their Soundcloud uploads, facilitating the exchange of an MP3 for a follower on Soundcloud, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. It’s a great service serv ice - yet still limited in it’ it’ss scope.
During the year we had used content gates extensively, having to thank much of our growth to the rise of the pheno phenomeno menon. n. Howeve Howeverr as we got to know all the existing platforms platfo rms so well, we also found that none of the them m oered the ful fulll feature set that we wanted to to have.
So my team and I set out to develop our own content gate. It’s called UnlockTHIS, UnlockTHIS, and it is the most extensive content gate out there. Made by creators, for creators. It’s for all creatives - musicians, videographers, writers, bloggers,
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everyone. It allows the exchange of any type of content, for followers on Soundcloud, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook (yeah - we worked around the ban) and email addresses. And we’ll be adding more social platforms as we grow. Y You ou can create lan landing ding pages which sshowcase howcase Y You ouT Tube and Sou Soundclo ndcloud ud streams, and they are fully fu lly customizable customizable.. Backgrounds, log logos os - ttweak weak every everything thing to t perfectly to your uniform uniform branding.
Getting started star ted is super easy. And free. Go here: http://www.unlockthis.net
Email Gating Building an email list is something that every artist and label shoul should d do, so I highly recommend that you at least set up an email capture form on your website. Services like MailChimp and Aweber are great tools to maintain your list with. I use the former. In the earlier versions of the book I had recommended an EmailUnlocker app created by one of of Soundcl Soundcloud oud’’s develo developers. pers. He has n now ow taken the a app pp oine.
Y You ou can use our pla platform tform UnlockTHIS UnlockTHIS to to set up great looking campaign pages where you can oer downloads downloads in exchang exchangee for email ad addresses. dresses. Or you can use Bandcamp to do just that - but then you have to host your content on their website.
Bandcamp Bandcamp is a music distributin distr ibuting g platform. It’ It’ss emphasis is al allowing lowing art artists ists to sell music independently, for whatever price or in exchange of emails. It cuts out the middle men (labels and other online stores). It’s very complementary to Soundcloud as it lacks a true interactive community, but does oer interesting ways of distributing your music.
Bandcamp’s email gate goes hand in hand with enabling free downloads. This also Bandcamp’ oers the ability to enable ‘pay what you want’ functionality. This allows fans to
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enter whatever amount they want to pay for your music. If they enter €0,00 they can be forced to ent enter er their email address, or they ccan an pay more and will be directed to a Paypal payment method. It’s genius, reputed and thus trustworthy and highly recommendable.
This is how you set it up:
•
Go to http://www.bandcamp.com
•
Create an account as an artist
•
When you have set up your account, go to your artist art ist homepage. Usually
‘artistname.bandcamp.com artistname.bandcamp.com’’ •
Click ‘add music’ in the header
•
Enter €0,00 as track pricing
•
Then tick ‘Require Email Address’
•
Whilst your add it, tick ‘let fans pay more if they want’. want’. To activate this
functionality, you will need to enter a working Paypal email address
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•
Once you have nished your track, copy the link and shorten it (use bit.ly (use bit.ly )
•
Then edit your sound on Soundcloud and paste the link in your ‘Buy URL’ . With a
Pro account you can customize cu stomize the description of your buy link to ‘Free Download’
It’s It’s very likely that you you’ll ’ll be surprised to see how generous peopl peoplee are. A Allowing llowing people to pay what they want can be a great move if you want to monetize your music. From my experience, our label earns more from donatio donations ns when giving away musi musicc for free than we do when solely selling it for a xed price. Note: Every download costs one download token. Free accounts are granted gr anted 200 of these every month. If you’re below 200 tokens when the replenishment point hits, you’ll be upgraded back to 200 tokens. Alternatively, you can purchase 300 tokens for 9$ or 2000 for 20$.
There is a very interesting interesting post about an experiment with free downloads and ‘pay what what you want’ want’ pricing by p producer roducer Su Subsquare, bsquare, which i reco recommend mmend yo you u read: http://blog. subsquare.com/one-month-of-catzilla-on-bandcamp
Y You ou can also embed the Ban Bandcamp dcamp play player er in your we website, bsite, howeve howeverr I do not recommend this. Better to embed your Soundcloud player, as the ‘download’ or ‘buy’ link to your email gate will show up there anyway.
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Facebook Like Gate The Facebook like-to-download gate was the rst and most notorious of the content gates. Since writing wr iting the rst version of the book, Fa Facebook cebook has prohibited any like-todownload apps as by their judgement it polluted the ‘likes’ on their platform and gave people less incentive to purchase paid advertisements to gather more likes. Besides implementing the ban, they have rened their algorithm so that now only 1015% of a Facebook page’s likers actually see a page’s content. By doing this they hope to encourage people to use paid ads more, but the actual result has been that more and more people are moving away from Facebook to dierent social platforms. Soundcloud, Y You ouT Tube, Instagram and Sna Snapchat pchat are thriving.
Still, Facebook is a relevant factor in determining an artist’s stage of success - and it helps drive booking decisions for promoters. With UnlockTHIS, UnlockTHIS, the cont content ent ga gate te that m my y team and I hav havee develo developed, ped, we have managed to work around the block of Facebook’s ban, and still allow users to set up campaigns and gate to the platform.
Y You ou can get started here here:: http://www.unlockthis.net http://www.unlockthis.net
Online Distributors Distribution.. A Distribution Also lso known as ‘getting your music to the places that will w ill sell it’ it’..
Nowadays it is fairly easy to distribute your music to online stores independently of a record label. There are services serv ices such as Bandcamp that allow you to do it via their own website, websit e, but also o online nline distributo distributors rs which allow you you to sen send d your m music usic to th thee most renowned online stores.
Should you do it? When considering considering distributing in indepen dependently dently,, there is on onee important fa factor ctor and tha thatt is exposure.
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If you can not personally top the amount of exposure that an attainabl attainablee record label could give you, then I would recommend against distributin distr ibuting g to online stores. In that case, focus on pushing to labels.
If you do have a decent reach, or are totally set on building this reach by putting out all your music music ind independe ependently ntly,, then this might jjust ust be the way. way.
Notee that there is a huge dierence between putting your stu on Bandcamp and Not building a catalog catalog on big st stores ores such as iT iTunes unes and Beatpo Beatport. rt. The latter co count unt as actual legal music stores and will require you do set up an administration administration.. Yo You u wil willl need to spend a lot of time on marketing ma rketing to make doing this worthwhile. wort hwhile.
Types of distribution When looking looking for distributi distribution, on, the there’ re’ss two ways of getting this done. done. One wa way y is by dealing directly with w ith the stores such as iT iTunes unes and Beatport. The second is dealing with w ith an aggregator that distributes to multiple stores.
Dealing with stores directly is not recomme recommended. nded. As the supply of musi musicc is ever increasing, big stores such as iTunes iTunes and Beatport place ver very y harsh restrictions on their suppliers. supp liers. Chances of getting through as a single artist or small independen independentt label are very slim, unless you have have a big manag managemen ementt compan company y or label ba backing cking you.
The best way to get this done is by dealing with an aggregator. If you’re a band, then your primary focus should should be making sure that they distribute distribute to iT iTunes unes and Spotify Spotify.. If you’re you ’re a p producer roducer,, you wan wantt to ad add d Beatport and possib possibly ly Jun JunoDownload oDownload tto o that list.
Deals So you want to rock with an aggregator aggregator.. Good choi choice. ce.
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Before I get to stating names, you have to understand the type of deals that they oer.
Fixed fee. You pay a xed amount of money for distributing specic releases. For example, $20,00 a year for an album or $5,00 for an EP. Royalty percentage. Here Here the ag aggregato gregatorr takes a percentage of the money earned by selling tracks. Usually this is between 5-20%. A combination combination o off xed fee and royalti royalties. es. In these cases, both are typically low. low.
Economically, it’s recommendable to run with the xed fee if you’re expecting large amount of sales. Say you’re expecting 1000 sales on an album then you’d be way better o paying that than giving giv ing up a percentage of royalti royalties. es.
However Howev er,, in practice, the best aggregators work with a percentage deal. They often work with bigger bigger labels and p provide rovide a more in interactive teractive se serv rvice ice with more su support pport and communication. communica tion. Comes with the price.
Who to pick? The biggest players in this game are Tunecore and CD Baby. These distribute to iTunes and Spotify, but not necessarily to Beatport. Take note of this if you’re a producer, as you likely likely want to h have ave yo your ur tracks on there. Th These ese parties are focused on artists that are independent independent releasing though, whe whereas reas there a are re also many aggregators that focus on labels. Other parties are Ditto Music, Feiyr and Zimbalam. Personally Perso nally,, I work with Beatport Baseware. This is Beatport’s own aggregating service serv ice and thus guarantees you the best delivery and ccommuni ommunications cations with Beatport itself. They also distribut distr ibutee to iT iTunes, unes, Amazon, Spotify and a anything nything else you can think of. Highly recommendable recommendable if you’ you’re re focused on dance music. This ser service vice is less accessible than the priorly mentioned mentioned parties though as they only accept parties part ies who are registered businesses and can prove they have a catalog of at least 6 releases prepared.
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Before I forget, forget, physical distr distributi ibution on still exists too. Al Almost most every d distributio istribution n company that does physical distributi distr ibution on can also oer you a digital deal. I wouldn wouldn’t ’t recommen recommend d using such a party part y as their prices are steeper and there’s there’s hardly a any ny benet tto o having a middle man. Only if you are a band can you expect to make any sales on physical product. produ ct. Go digital. Its future proof.
Parties and Pricing: P ricing: Beatport Baseware Baseware Percentage TuneCore TuneCore Fixed Fee - http://www.tunecore.com/index/pricing CD Baby Fixed Fee + Percentage (9%) - http://members.cdbaby.com/cd-baby-cost.aspx Ditto Music Music w.dittomusic.com/ dittomusic.com/dittomusic/Custom.aspx?Pricing dittomusic/Custom.aspx?Pricing Fixed Fee - http://ww http://www. Feiyr One time fee €9,90 + Percentage (20%) - http://www.feiyr.com/c/en/priceOverview Zimbalam Fixed Fee - http://zimbalam.eu/faq.php#faq2
To summarize, distribution is a good choice if you think you can do better than the labels that are attainable for you. When picking a distributor, take note that the better connected ones will have better screening procedures so you need to have your game together togeth er when approa approaching ching them. In those ccases, ases, set up a business, prepare artwork and a catalog. If you’re doing it independently as an artist, your best bet is either TuneCore or CD Baby Baby..
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4.3 - Getting Signed The music game has changed. Artists Art ists now hav havee the too tools ls to create an and d market the their ir own music. Distribu Distribution tion is easy and getting your sounds heard via Soundcloud and YouTube is possible for everyone. And so is music productio production, n, as having Fruity Loops or Ablet Ableton on is just a sin single gle torren torrentt download away away.. As a result, there is more competiti competition on than ever ever.. So many peopl peoplee are making and sharing music. In this huge supply is a lot of quality, but also a lot of noise.
So music professionals, professionals, the people in the business, A&Rs, A&R s, managers and booking agents, look for great musicians who are proving that they’re great by developing their own fanbases and getting traction. Long past are the days where getting signed meant your career was made. Today, you need to cultivate your own fanbase before people will even conside considerr working w with ith you, and once they do pick you up, using the tools and independent marketing means at your disposal will be crucial to establishing something something that lasts long-t long-term. erm.
In this chapter we are going to talk about what it takes to get signed, the type of labels, how to nd them and how to submit your music.
Types of labels Record Labels are typically divided into two g groups, roups, the major major and independe independents. nts.
The music industry has been largely dominated by the major labels and have competed and merged so often that now only three huge ones remain: Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group. These major labels have many sublabels in many dieren d ierentt countries. The indie labels are all a ll the imprints that a are re not publicaly aliated with the majo majors. rs. Smaller,, less capital intensi Smaller intensive ve businesses, whom work closely with their art artists ists to establish success. It’s more home-grown, less corporate.
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Indie labels are sometimes acquired by the t he majors once they strike success, or adopt adopted ed by major major labels as ‘‘subsi subsidiaries’ diaries’ so that they can tap in into to the distributi distribution on netwo networks rks and resource pools of these big players. It It can be hard to recognize a subsi subsidiary, diary, as they maintain their own branding and style, whilst everything that runs via the big boys happens under the hood.
The big dierentiator dierentiator between the indies and majo majors rs is this: wealth and degree of freedom. Major labels have big pools of money, strong distribution and marketing networks, which can guarantee success - but but often g go o at the cost of a lot o off an artist’s artistic freedoms or reasonabl re asonablee royalty rates. Indie’ss are more bouti Indie’ boutique, que, wor working king w with ith restricted resources to do what they can. In the current day, you see more and more independents thriving because of the opportunities that the internet provide for them. And because they are exible and only have to follow their own rules, they can easily adapt and utilize these chances.
Today, many majors only sign artists whom require a production budget (for recording costs etc.) etc.) on 360-deals. These are deals where the artist ar tist not only gives out a big chunk of their artist art ist royalties (o (often ften times 5050-80% 80% will go to the label), bu butt the label a also lso received a kick-back on revenue generated by live performances and merchandise. Both majors and indies work with ‘option deals’, where an artist does not sign for a specic period, but in turn signs over a specic number of tracks, whilst giv giving ing the label an exclusive option option to release future records. The releases of these signed tracks and options are typically followed by an ‘exclusive period’, where the artist is not allowed to put out music on other labels. As indies do not have the clout nor the want to sign 360-deals, they typically t ypically work with solely with option deals.
Y You ou sho should uld know that at the ttop op tier of the musi musicc game, there are ffew ew indepe independen ndentt labels which are able to compete without a distribution deal via a major. For example OWSLA (Skrillex’s label) and Dim Mak (Steve Aoki’s label) are both distributed via the Warner Mus Warner Music ic Grou Group. p. M Most ost of the p publi ublicc doesn’ doesn’tt know this. My advice to all of you ambitious artists and industry industr y professio professionals, nals, is to rst establish
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success independently independently by improving the quality of your music and leveraging social media, to then progress label talks on an optional deal basis. If you truly want w ant to break through, a la Lorde or Adelle, you you’ll ’ll need majo majorr label distribution and marketing budgets. However the best way to generating those opportunities is by proving you can c an do it yourself and moving up on the ladder by working with the best parties.
Requirements When trying to get signed signed to a label, label, there’ there’ss a certain degree of quality you n need eed to guarantee. Label A&R (Artist (Ar tist and Repertoires - the people that receive and judg judgee the incoming music) hear so much music coming in that you have to nd a way to dierentiate yourself immediately, on every level.
This comes back to what we discussed in our earlier chapter on ‘The Foundation’. Every and all pointers mentioned there need to be executed into the details in order to create a fully fu lly coherent and polished appearance.
Y You ou can bet your ass that an A&R will be looking at these things. Of course, rstly rstly,, the music needs to be great…. But once it is, there’s all these other factors which can give an indication of how well you have your game together. And that’s an indication of your dedication and motivation.
Musically, Musi cally, visually and on the web every everything thing needs to be right. r ight. Make sure your bi bio o and press shots are up to date, have good and tting artwork art work or log logo o designs, that all your social-media social-media sites are set u up p and interlinked, interlinked, incl including uding yo your ur own .com do domain. main.
Finding Labels Now that you have your requirements sorted and the foundation is set, you need to determine who you’re going to be submitting music to.
As much as I’d I’d love sa saying ying that you you’ll ’ll get signed tto o the rst and best label y you ou submi submitt to, this is unlikely. So, don’t put all your eggs in a single basket. You are going to build a list of preferable labels. A ranked list.
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This is usually where an Excel sheet comes in handy. Create one.
Don’t have excel? Get OpenOce OpenOce (that’s (that’s like Oce but then free). Or nd something else in which you can c an create and edit tables.
When searching for for labels, make sure tto o select them based based on the tracks that y you ou wish to submit to them. Sending dubstep to a rock label isn’t going to work. The better the t, the bigger your chances of getting signed. Try to match the labels to the track or release that you are pushing.
Start with w ith the labels you you’re ’re already a fan of. Think of artists ar tists that have strongly inuenced your music or that are very compatibl compatible. e. Find the labels that released their stu. Look in the sales charts of reputed online music stores. If you’re a producer, use Beatport and Juno.
What is the right label? Since writing the rst r st version of this book, my perspective on ‘what is the right label’ has changed signicantly signicantly.. It is no longer about nding a label, it is about nding the right business partner to accelerate your route to success. Wee have wo W worked rked with many dieren dierentt labels fo forr our artists at Heroi Heroic. c. Big o ones, nes, small ones. However few of the big ones outperformed our own little independent label Heroic, when it came to getting the most out of a release. Big players often push out two to three releases per week. They focus on building catalogues, and only the releases by reputed reputed ar artists tists get a priority treatment. As a re result, sult, most of the time you’ll be better o working with an independe independent nt that will give your release intensive treatment and knows how to manouver the online playing eld, than you are signing signing to a bi big g name.
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Y You ou sho should uld know that ‘getting si signed’ gned’ is n not ot the sol solution ution if you you’re ’re n not ot getting en enough ough traction. If that is the case, you have to improve your music and marketing eorts. Then once you reach the point that you’re getting heard, then you are in a good position to get your music out there. Think about it. The only labels that would want to work with artists that have no following or name, are labels that don’t have any either. Good independents will lter for artists that t hat have a thing going on - with people that are waiting to hear new music and that are excited about the act. Once you reach that stage, what you should look for in a label is a long term partner. A party with whom you can ccomb ombine ine your eorts to build both their and your brand. A good place place to start looking for th thee right play player er is by analyzing your iidols. dols. Ch Check eck out the tastemakers and front-runners front-runners in your scene. Where are they releasing releasing?? Or gure out what new labels are making waves in your niche. Then build relationships there.
Spamming lists with w ith the hope to get signed may work, work, but the odds of establishing a relevant relationshi relationship p there that w will ill ccarr arry y you to success are slim. Being on iTunes iTunes or Beatport it not enough - you need a plan and people that will put in the eort for you.
Extracting labels from Beatpo Beatport rt However, if you are clueless about the tastemakers in your scene, you can scour Beatport to build a list that’ that’ss relevant within your sc scene. ene. Research where your idols have released music last, or extract the labels that are droppin dropping g releases which end up in the Top 100 Releases and Top 100 charts.
Beatport uses two t wo types ty pes of char charts: ts: T Top op 100 tracks and Top 100 Releases. The prior ranks the t he best sellers in a month, the latter the best selling new releases. A release typically enters the Top 100 Releases chart before it goes to the Top 100 tracks chart. These charts are genre specic. Beatport does have an overall chart, which combines the best sellers and best new selling releases r eleases of all genres to compile an overall list.
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Y You ou can nd the ove overall rall charts char ts by goin going g to Beatport.com Beatport.com and and clicking on ‘Beatport Top 100 Tracks’ on the bottom right hand side of the page.
The overall ‘Top 100 Releases’ chart can be found below the ‘Top 100 Tracks’ chart.
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Select specic genres by hovering over the ‘Genres’ button at the top of the page. To then nd their respective Top 100 Tracks and releases, repeat the same steps as explained before but then on the page of a genre.
I recommend using the Top 100 Releases charts of the genre of music that you’re pushing to grab record labels from. This can be done very easily by copy-pasting the wholee chart and ltering out th whol thee label names. Th Then en lter o out ut the du duplicat plicates. es.
If you need more, then you can repeat the same process for the genre specic Top 100 Releases charts.
Extracting label names from the Top 100 Tracks list:
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Y You ou sho should uld now kno know w enou enough gh methods to buil build d a decent la label bel list. Rank it, so that you know know your ord order er of pref preference. erence. Do this based o on n your own fav favoritism oritism and the size of a label. You’re probably better o signing with a label that has a large social media following follo wing than a small one.
Submitting Now that you have a list of labels, let’s talk about submitting music.
In order to successfully submi submitt your music and to increase your odds in getting signed, there’s one important thing you have to focus on…..
People want to feel special.
The A&R at your favorite record label wants to feel special too. He loves the idea of an artist creating music specically for their label and then sending it to just them. Those are often the artists ar tists whom are compatibl compatiblee and make the st stu u that he signs.
Bigger labels receive tons and tons of demos. Next to quality of music and presentation, personalization is a huge dierentiator. We’re all way more likely to open an email that’s personally addressed to us. It shows that you know us, or that you’ve done your homework to gure out who we are. It’s also the reason why people (and A&R’s in particular) hate receiving demos that are sent out to multiple people.
Next to that, there are a few things that are much appreciated and not done when sending in submissions. submissions. See tthe he summary list below for a list and elaborati elaborations. ons.
The do’s and don’ts of submissions •
Personalize Personalize your email
Address your email to the A&R in question. question. Use his/her his/her rst name. • Use streaming + download links Submit your music using a streaming and a nd download link. Use Soundcloud private Mega.co.nz for for uploads uploa ds for the streaming link lin k and hosting services serv ices such as Dropbox or Mega.co.nz
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the download. Stick to 320kbps 320kbps MP3 les. •
Never Never send tracks as attachments
If there’s there’s one thing that t hat drives labels crazy, cra zy, it’s it’s people that attach tracks to ttheir heir emails. Imagine 100 people people doing that with a 5mb le le every day. Within a few weeks they ca can’t n’t open their inbox anymore. Most big labels have lters on their demo email addresses to block these mails out. •
Do not mass mail
The best way of ruining ru ining your shots is by blatantly mass marketing a demo. If you do send one to multiple recipients, make damn sure that they can’t notice. This entails not BCC-ing multiple people on a submission email and not sharing the same private SC stream with w ith a ton (as they can all al l see the play count). count). When you do come to using the last resort of copy pasting a pre-written email, make sure to nicely alternate the names of the recipients (be it rst name or the name of the label). Be on the lookout for dierences in fonts, font sizes and text color. •
Send compatible music
Only send labels music that ts their style. •
Add social media and website website links
Speaks for itself. •
Keep it short
Long stories are unnecessary. You can show that you’ve done your homework by personalizing, sending tracks that are compatible in style, attaching social media links link s and using good streaming and download services.
In addition to applying applying the above tips, there a are re a few things you can do to increase your odds of getting signed eve even n more.
Increasing your odds •
Follow up once a week
When using the Soundcloud Soundcloud private private upload upload for the streaming link, you you can check whether it it has received plays. plays. This is your indicator indicator of whether whether a label has listened listened to a track. If it did receive plays but you didn’t get a reply from them, then you’re safe to
assume that they don t want the track. If it didn t get any plays, a good rule of thumb t humb is to
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send a short and sweet email reminder once a week. Something along the lines of “Hey x, did you perhaps get a chance to check out the demo I sent over? Submission attached”. •
Submit on dierent platforms platforms
If you do not have the personal contact details of someone at the label you’re pitching to and are forced to use a generic demos@ demos@ email address, then it can be wise w ise to submit your demo demo via multiple multiple ways. If the label has a demo demo submission submission platform, platform, as well as a demos@ address, address, then by all means submit via both. However, do not send the same email to a variety of email addresses if you do not know to who you are directing your email. Whenever we see a submission come in at our contact@ and demos@ email address, we take ta ke that as unprofessionality unprofessionality,, as minor research would have shown you that we explicitly ask you to only send to demos@ •
Get to know the people you’re dealing deali ng with
Establish a relationship with the people you’re submitting music to. It’s far more likely that they’ll open your email and listen to your music or what you have to say if they know who it is coming coming from. Now, Now, in order to to start such a relationship you you have tto o rst get in touch with these people. Tools for doing so are using Facebook searches such as “people that work at ‘label x’” and friending them, then just getting to know each other over casual (possibly music related) banter. When doing so, keep in mind that you must never directly approach them to talk about business, a release or your music submission. That’s very rude and the people people at bigger bigger labels labels get bombed with these requests. Just act casual. Become friends. Then, if you send something their way, they will check it out. No need to remind them of it. Be subtle. •
Combine Combine correct submission submission etiquette with the other odd increasing tips and you
shouldn’t shouldn ’t have too hard of a time getting signed. Assuming As suming your music rocks of course. Take note though, persistence is key here!
Note: I have written an extensive article called ‘The Unconventional Guide To Getting Signed By A Label’ on my blog. There is some overlap with this information here, but it’s a great supplement. Check it out here here..
4.4 - Music Blogs
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There’s another force growing very dominant in the modern music industry. A force not to be underestimated underestimated and especially not to be underunder-used used by ar artists tists as yourself yourself..
We’ W e’re re talking about m music usic bl blogs. ogs.
More and more you see independent artists and labels getting big by releasing and distributing their music independently, sometimes even for free, and getting massive exposure because of the support of music blogs.
These blogs come in many dierent forms, but more commonly are; Traditional website blogs Online music magazines Y You ouT Tube and Soun Soundclou dcloud d ‘chann ‘channels’ els’
Traditional Music Blogs These are websites which upload music they gets submitted to them and discover new talents. They post about it on their site and sometimes oer an RSS R SS feed or email newsletter to keep their fans up to date.
Online Music Magazines Sites like these are extended traditional music blogs. Next to doing what their conventional conven tional counte counterparts rparts do, they often also oer inte interv rviews iews with the a artists, rtists, rev review iew new album releases and are involved in (commercial) public relations for labels and artists.
YouTube & Soundcloud Channels These are the newest up and comers of them all. Channels like these report their
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new favorite musical ndings in the form of uploaded tracks on their YouTube and Soundcloud channels. Just like a typical blog they receive submissions and judge on forms of quality. The best get uploaded. They keep their fans updated through allowing them to subscribe or follow their channels within YouTube or Soundcloud their framework.
Next we treat how to nd the right blogs and what the best ways are of submitting to them.
Finding Them When looking looking for m music usic blo blogs gs there are dieren dierentt methods that w work ork best fo forr each particular type of blog.
Traditional Blogs & Music Magazines Firstly,, there are the major blogs. These are names that a Firstly are re huge tastemakers in the modern industry and serve as guidelines for bi big g festivals and events for booking artists. ar tists. Sites come to mind such as: Pitchfork , StereoGum StereoGum and and Earmilk . Alternatively Alternativel y, there is a great w website ebsite tha thatt aggregates all of these b blogs logs and gures out which music music and artists are most poppin popping. g. This is the Hype Machine Machine..
Y You ou can easily gathe gatherr a good list of blogs blogs relevan relevantt to yo your ur particular genre and locatio location n using the HypeM. I’ll teach you how. Go to the HypeM site, then click on ‘blogs’ in the top menu.
Scroll down and you can tthen hen select lters of genre and location. Pick the ones relevant to you.
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HypeM then lters out the blogs relevant to you. Click on a blog to see more information about it. You can then easily go to their site by clicking on their url.
YouTube & Soundcloud channels These types of channels are a little harder to nd as they mostly thrive within their respective platforms, being YouTube and Soundcloud. Google doesn’t make it as easy to nd the relevant ones as it does for the more important blogs. Take note that there are far more huge YouTube channels than there are Soundcloud channels. Also, these channels are mostly genre specic. Often Of ten times, these channels go under the moniker of ‘Music Promoters’. The term ‘blog’ is rarely used in their scene.
Big taste making channels that come to mind are: Majestic Maj estic Casual, U UKF KF D Dubste ubstep, p, Going Quantum, Funkk Funkky y Panda, Mr Suicide Sheep Sheep,, Nik House.NET). Cooper and the EDM Network (Dubstep.NET (Dubstep.NET,, House.NET).
These are all a ll channels w with ith 100. 100.000+ 000+ subscribers or more. Getting uploaded by one of these is a guarantee to a whole lot of trac and notoriety. Something not to be underestimated.
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Unfortunately, there is no website or service that aggregates these channels yet. BUT, there are some forums in which these channels communicat communicatee and these provide some resources with the names of many relevant channels.
I’d recommend joining up with the edmDistrict community forums in forums in order to get more involved and informed about these YouTube channels.
As for lists of channels, here are a few resources: •
Ongoing Ongoing post with channels - http://community.edmdistrict.com/showthread.
php?31-List-of-YouTube-Promoter-Channels-%28WIP%29 •
Community maintained Google Docs excel sheet - http://bit.ly/promoter-list
• ‘Promoter ‘Promoter Showcase’ on edmDistrict forums - http://community.edmdistrict.com/ forumdisplay.php?37-Promoter-Spotlight
Using these methods you should now be able to create a decent database of both traditional blogs and YouTube music promoters. Next we treat the details of how to submit music to them.
Submitting Submitting music music to these blogs is a llittle ittle dierent than doing so to record labels.
Additionally Additio nally,, there’ there’ss a slight diere dierence nce between the n needs eeds of a traditio traditional nal blog or magazine and a YouTube channel. The prior might have use for a little ‘press story’ whereas this is far less relevant relevant for a Y You ouT Tube channel channel..
Below I’ll outline the best practices when submitting music to blogs.
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Submitting to blogs •
Personalize Personalize your email
•
Use streaming + download links
•
Oer both 320mp3 and add 16 bit 44.1hz .WAV les on the download
•
If there’s multiple tracks, put the MP3 and .WAV les in a .zip. Attach the release
cover artwork and a press text while you’re at it. •
Attach all your social media and website links
•
Use an easily easil y interpretable email subject along the lines of ‘[Electro ‘[Elect ro House] Porter
Robinson - Firepower (Free Download)’ •
Always note a free download or record label in the subject
•
If it concerns a free f ree download, attach a link to the download that the blog/
promoter can use publicly. •
Add a summary list including the following information: information: artist name, track name,
genre, record label, release release date, free f ree download yes or no, streaming streami ng link, download link, lin k, public download links, social media links.
I have written an extensive guide on YouTube Music Promoters and how to submit to them. Read it here: http://www.budivoogt.com/new-generation-tastemakers-30 youtube-music-channels-decide-goes youtube-m usic-channels-decide-goes-viral/ viral/
Example When put put to pra practice, ctice, an ideal prom promoter oter su submission bmission eemail mail wil willl look like this this:: ——— To:
[email protected] Subject: [Electro House] Porter Robinson - Firepower (Free Download)
Content: Dear Peter,
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Mailing you with my latest release, out now now on my own label as a free download. Love your channel channel and would llove ove it if you wo would uld be willing to supp support ort it. Pub Public lic downloa download d links attached.
Art ist: P Artist: Porter orter Rob Robinson inson Track: Firepower (Original Mix) Genre: Electro House Free Download: Yes Record Label: Robinson Records Release Date: 31-07-2013
Private Stream: http://www,sc.com/dsfjh Private Down Download load (320 MP3): http:/ http://bit.ly /bit.ly//321h39 Private Download (.WAV): http://bit.ly/947j1jk Public Free Download: http://porter.bandcamp.com/repower
Follow me: Www.porterrobinson.com Www.porterrobinso n.com Www.facebook. Www. facebook.com/ com/porterrobinso porterrobinson n Www.twitter. Www. twitter.com/ com/porterrobinson porterrobinson Www.soundclo Www.so undcloud.com ud.com/po /porterrobinson rterrobinson Www.Y Www. You ouT Tube.co ube.com/ m/porterrobinson porterrobinson
Thanks a bunch,
- Porter ---
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As noted priorly priorly,, make sure to .zi .zip p the MP3 o orr W WA AV les tog together ether with the artwork and possible release text.
More so than with record labels, you need to scatter shoot while doing this. There’s no harm in sending a release to a lot of blogs at the same time. Just make sure you personalize.
Alternatively Alternativel y to using an eemail mail client, y you ou could use a n newsletter ewsletter serv service ice such as Mailchimp to automate this process. This becomes crucial when you’re frequently releasing music and have established a big database with blogs and promoters to contact.
4.5 - Building a Network
This is possible the most important best practice of them all. Making friends.
The whole music industry, and probably every other one out there revolves around friends. And giving. And taking.
Labels, blogs and probably you too are far more inclined to give people that they know something as opposed to someone that they don’t. It’s biology. Therefore, it’s of prime importance that you get to know the people that you want to be involved with and establish a network within the t he scene. With all the social media available available right now now,, building this ne network twork is getting easi easier er and easier. I have multiple tips on how you can get in contact with the people you want to deal with, which I’ll summarize below below..
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Foundations of networking Do not directly or immediately talk about business. Develop Develop a relationship rst. Business comes later.
Y You ou have tto o be conden condentt eno enough ugh to mix your artist activities with your personal activities. Only if you have the condence condence to do so will it be convincing enough to someone else. This means telling your friends you’re making music, shouting it on your Facebook page and simply radiating how enthusiastic you are about it.
They’re all just people. The big guys at the labels. The artists that made it big. And they all started sta rted where you star started. ted. Don’t Don’t treat them like gods, treat them like people.
Talk about them, not about you. Ask questions. Be interested. Listening to what people have to say is the best way to get to know them. Once you get to know them, you can gure out what they want and a nd need.
Building that network Reach out to people. On whatever network. If you just submitted a demo to a label, make a tweet about it and tag them. Got a comment from a fan or a reply from a label on an email? Respond. Interact. Ask them questions. They’ll remember and love you for it.
Use Facebook’s upgraded search. For most labels I submit music to or artists that I sign, I immediately immediately try tr y and establish a personal link w with ith them. Use the search query “People that work at labelx” to nd people working there. Facebook’s page descriptions sometimes also show highlighted page owners.
Help people out. Even if it doesn’t help you. People remember it and it wins you goodwill.
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Use community forums. These exist for all types of genres and are particularly active for producers. Learn about producing here, showcase your music and contribute to the GearSlutz.. community. Recommended EDM Producer forums are edmDistrict edmDistrict and and GearSlutz
When you you app apply ly all of these things, yo you u will quickly be able tto o create a thriving network. And once you get to know more people, extending that network gets easier and easier. People People te tend nd to be more open to ffriends riends of friends. Once this starts snowballing you will start star t noticing ho how w your network will al allow low for many new opportunities.
5 - (Un)fair Advantage Get that edge.
Just that little bit extra.
It might make your life a whole lot easier.
That (un)fair advantage. That’s what’s up.
In this chapter we talk about methods and tricks that very few peopl peoplee know of. They are ecientt and ca ecien can n change the game for you. Whether they’re fair and ethical or not is up to you. You need to know about these methods though.
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5.1 - Become A Pro: Cheaply In the past, Sound S oundcloud cloud allowed users to get discounts on Pro and Pro Unlimited accounts by using voucher codes. I had gured gu red out a number of tricks tr icks to generat generatee these codes, however unfortunately they have removed this feature.
5.2 - Comment & Play Communities There are sites that help you gather followers, plays and comments. These are called ca lled trac exchange communiti communities. es.
Simply put, what they do is that they allow you to log in to their site via your Soundcloud account (using API, like you would when liking something on Facebook whilst browsing the the web web). ). The Then n you ga gather ther credits whe when n performing a said task and then get to spend these credits on receiving statistics by other people performing said tasks. Two of these sites are leading at the moment, but one is the most notorious.
Cloud Killers - http://www.cloudkillers.com/ On this site you earn credits cred its by mandato mandatorily rily listening to full tracks and by placing insightful and constructive comments on them. These credits can then be spent on your own tracks, which will be submitted to a poo pooll where oth other er peopl peoplee can tune in and place criticism. It’s an interesting way of increasing your statistics, extending your fan base and getting exposed to new new musi music. c.
Cloud Hits - http://cloud-hits.com/ Practically the same as Cloud Killers but a tad less rened and more focused on followers. You log in using your Soundcloud account’s API and the program starts executing an automated following script. It records every user you follow and grants you a credit for it it.. These credits can then be spen spentt on receiving new follow followers ers yourself or plays and comments.
Ethical or not, it works. Now you know about it. And there’s more where this came from. 120
5.3 - Soundcloud Bots We’ve W e’ve arrived at th thee creme de la cre creme me of the ((un un)fair )fair advantag advantage. e.
Let’s talk about bots.
What?? What
Robots. Software that automates a process for you. Such as following people on Soundcloud, listening to their tracks, sending them messages or placing comments. There’ss even one that collects email addresses o accounts. There’ These tools truly exist and are extremely powerful.
Normal Bots The market for these bots is dominated by a few players and only two of these are note worthy.. Both hav worthy havee their up an and d downsides and I will discuss these together together with their functionality.
Cloud Dominator - http://cloud-dominator.com/ A strong standalone standalone pi piece ece of software. Made so solely lely ffor or Windo Windows ws but can be made compatible to OSX by using a windows port. It’s pricing is a steep one time fee of $77 with all future upgrades free. Its features include an automated process for following and unfollowing people and the pools from which these accounts are drawn d rawn can be specied to the followers of a particular part icular account or members of a specic group. Additio Additionally nally it al allows lows you to automatically aut omatically place commen comments ts on a all ll sounds in a specic g group roup and to spin these ((you you can write w rite dierent commen comments ts and it will rotate which one it pla places) ces).. Auto messaging is possible too, also with w ith spinning functionali f unctionality. ty.
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The biggest weak point here is that you need to physically execute every action separately separate ly and no chain of commands or macro sequen sequence ce is possible. That means that if you want to follow 100 people and then unfollow 100 people, then send out some messages and want to repeat that for another account, you need re-congure its settings for every new action. It also needs a separate click to initiat initiatee each action.
In practice, it works, but only with using a d disciplin isciplined ed schedule. The benets of using such software can only be seen when used consistently over lon longer ger time.
CloudSeekr Clou dSeekr - http://www.cloudseekr.com/ A more sophisticated sophisticated bot that runs within your web browser browser.. Just like the trac exchange communities we discussed, it runs on the Soundcloud API code. You don’t even need a separate account, and you can log straight in using your SC account account..
The functionality it oers is the same as Cloud-Dominator; automatic following, unfollowing, unfollo wing, messaging and commenting commenting.. Yo You u can also specif specify y the groups and users from which you wish to leech accounts and tracks.
It beats its competitor on a huge point though and this is automation. The processes here are simply ‘hands o’ once they are set up. The scripts run by themselves, regardless of whether you are logged in or not. No need to re-arrange anything or to adjust some some settings. Just come back on once ce every week and make sure every everything thing is calibrated.
They oer a month month free trial a and nd then run on a $9 a month subscription. subscription.
When using these these bots, make sure tto o adhere to th thee restrictions that SC p places laces on you yourr accounts. If you exceed these, you will receive warnings, and eventually get banned.
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Account Restrictions •
Following
Maximum amount of people an account can c an follow is 2000. Try Try keep this t his number below 1000. Less is more credible. Normal accounts can follow or unfollow up to 100 people a day, for paid this is increased to 250 users. This is a combined number, so 100 on normal can constitute of 50 follows and 50 unfollows. In terms of frequency, there’s no limit. Use some common sense and use at least a random few seconds buer bet between ween new actions. •
Commenting
The amount of comments comments you can place in a certain period of time is limited. SC is very strict on this to prevent prevent excessive excessive spamming, which used to be a big issue. issue. It’s It’s recommended to never leave more than 20 comments within 24 hours and to leave three minutes in between of these. Copy pasting ve identical comments comments within seconds will 99.99% of the time result in a communicative ban. These exist in increasing weight. •
Messaging
Messaging is severely restricted and monitored by SC, particularly par ticularly when your message contains a URL. Limit messaging to a maximum of 15 messages a day with 5 minutes between messages. If you cross these boundaries and do get get agged for ab abusive usive behavior, behavior, stricter limits will wil l be applied to your account.
Email Harvesters The same provider that oers you the Soundcloud Dominator bot that we just discussed has released an ‘email scraping’ tool. Seeing as there’s only a single provider, I can only elaborate on that.
CloudGrabber - http://cloud-dominator.com/new-cloud-grabbersoftware/ Standalone software for Windows by the same developer as Cloud Dominator. Can be made compatible with OSX using a Windows port. Price is a hefty single fee of $37,00.
The software lters lters out email addresses or account names from a accounts that are a
memberr of a group. This group can be specied by you. Once it has found these, it can membe 123
export this into a text or excel le for you to use it elsewhere. Commo Common n usage of such a database would be for newsletter marketing and sending out promos of your tracks.
5.4 - Download Everything What if I told told yo you u that there is a wa way y to downloa download d sound tha thatt is up on So Soundclo undcloud. ud. Whether downloads downloads are enabl enabled ed or not not..
It’s It’s tr true. ue. And easy to unlock.
A number of of smart coders gured out how tto o write web-browser extensions extensions whi which ch can extract the soundb soundbytes ytes tthat hat you hear when you stream a track on Soundclo Soundcloud. ud. Like I explained before, Soundcloud converts all of the content that is uploaded to their platform platfo rm to 128kb 128kbps ps for streaming purposes. When downloads are ocially enabl enabled ed within a track’s settings, settings, then the originally up uploaded loaded l lee is unlocked, how however ever using this alternative method, you can extract ex tract the 128kbps MP3 for your listening purposes.
Setting up these browser extensions is simple. Just download them, add them to your browser extensions, extensions, restart your b browser rowser and na navigate vigate to Soundcl Soundcloud. oud.
If you’re a Firefox user, grab it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/refox/addon/soundcloud-downloader-techn/ And Chrome users users can get it here here:: https://sites.google.com/site/snapsav/SoundCloud-Downloader-Technowise_v0.72. zip?attredirects=0&d=1 zip?attredirects=0&d=1
Alternatively Alternativel y, there are websi websites tes which o oer er this feature from within your bro browser wser.. Here you just paste the link of the t he track you’ you’re re tr trying ying to down download load and they trigger the download straight from Soundcloud’s server. Browser plugins are probably a safer bet though.
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Find one of those sites here: http://www.soundcloud-download.com/
Happy listening.
6 - Final Words Y You’ ou’ve ve made iitt to the nish nish..
By now you know almost every thing I k know now about Soun Soundclou dcloud, d, and of tthe he strategies that we have used to grow our audiences and establish careers. If you are truly tr uly dedicated to this music thing, then the knowledge, guidelines guidelines and tips set out in this book should serve as a means to set you far apart from f rom the competiti competition. on. These are things that we wished we had known back when we started, and that can really help you make the dierence.
Work W ork hard. Be critical. Pro Promote mote h hard. ard. And above all, build re relatio lationships. nships. Tha That’ t’ss the biggest game game changer in this ind industry. ustry. I hope you will use the basic foundations to judge the quality of your content. That you will set up the perfect Soundclou Soundcloud d account an and d will strea streamline mline all your other social proles accordingly. accordingly. That you’ll curate, cur ate, edit and ne-tune your existing uplo uploads ads and new music until your oering is absolutely awesome. So that you can attract more plays, more fans and love by doing so. And that it may open the door to talks talk s w with ith industry professionals and those you look up to. Then once the point comes when you’re signed to a label and represented by a manager or agent, you’re not solely dependent on them for your success, but you have become your own independe independent nt marketin marketing g machine - by lleveraging everaging the pow power er that the in internet ternet and content platforms like Soundcloud and YouTube have given us.
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In 2014 we have had the pleasure of seeing seeing one of our artists grow from zero to millions of plays and international tours, within half a year’s time. Two years ago, our label started from scratch.
Why am I telling you you this? Because if we can do it, so can you.
Independent success is possible. And wholly within your reach. You don’t need a lot of money or ties to the top. Just hard work and an amazing product.
---Thank you for reading!
I would love to hear your thoughts about the book. I want to invite you to send an email to me at
[email protected] answering the following questions: What did you you like abou aboutt the book book?? What did yo you u hate hate?? Is there anything I missed or that you would like to have further furt her explained? Let me know. And feel free to reach out to me for anything else.
Y Yours, ours,
Budi Voogt budi budi@b @budivoogt. udivoogt.com com http://www.budivoogt.com
