So, about all those DOWNLOAD MY TRACK FOR FREE NOW! Facebook/Twitter updates
At some point in the not too distant future I intend to begin producing. I have been dabbling in it on and off for 15 years and while it will never be my full time job, it’s something I am going to take more seriously going forward.
So let’s say that I create this amazing track, fit for dancefloors across the globe. I then offer it out as a free download and get a few people downloading and playing it. How does this affect getting it signed?
My questions are:
Do labels shy away from tracks that are already essentially in the public domain?
Are free tracks good promotional activity or do they just underline the “you get what you pay for” attitude?
If you offer you offer up free downloads of your tracks
Why do you do it?
What kid of download counts do you get on individual tracks?
Has a free download led to you being signed? If so, by what kind of label?
If you don’t offer free downloads - why don’t you?
Sensible discussion please. let’s talk about YOUR experiences, not someone you know or a DJ/producer you love or hate.
I never had issues with full tracks posted in soundcloud, downloads disabled of course. Why disable them? It’s a direct hit on your sales and an automatic ignore for labels on unsigned material (why should they bother getting the exclusivity of selling it if people can get it for free?).
I do hand them out as white labels to a handful of people pre release tho and tend to enable dowloads for short periods on tracks that have been out for a while.
Good responses. So are all the FREE Download merchants basically telling the world their tracks aren’t of sufficient quality to warrant people paying for them or are they just unaware of the ramifications of the free download?
I don’t have any producing experience myself, so I can only report what I observe from others. One thing I notice a lot, is that producers create edits or remixes of tracks where they have no real chance of getting the rights legally anyway. Examples: Lana del Rey - Video Games (Joris Voorn Edit), Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man (Monkey Safari Remix) or the Somebody that I used to know Edits everybody and their mother uploaded a while ago.
I can’t comment on the legal risk of doing this, but there are some serious promotional advantages. If you DJ additionally to your production, these edits are likely going to be “signature tracks” in your set that everybody remembers. Making it available (of course after you played it excessively) can increase the connection between you and the people coming to your gigs. This can also be a form to promote your facebook/soundcloud profile if you tell people that you’ll make it available soon and they’ll get it if they follow you.
Even though free tracks won’t get you signed, most labels will be far more interested in a producer with a large following. Create a fanbase with freebies first, get signed second, with new tracks you don’t hand out.
Not my personal experience as I don’t produce, but it seems pretty straightforward to me.
A thousand times yes. Free downloads need to be standard. Unless you’re close to top tier, selling your tracks is a joke anyways. The self-righteous “if I like an artist, i want to support him” people are so few and far between that you’re never going to make anything but a negligable amount of money anyway unless you’re famous.
Think about Pretty Lights for example. Never sold a single track, but he’s TOP tier, plays sold out shows almost every night. Owns his own label, and can make anyone famous that he wants to. Seriously, the days of record labels and paying for releases are dead and gone. Free tracks and paid shows are the way the music industry HAS to go if they want to keep making any money at all.
Plus, as an EDM artist, unless you’re famous, the majority of people that would be finding and downloading your tracks anyways are DJs who want to spin your music, which should be your goal. Your average EDM fan doesn’t go hunting for underground tracks on beatport and soundcloud… They maybe buy the new releases of the top-teir producers, and then the occasional tracks that they’ve heard someone play and asked for a track name.
personally, I’ve purchased only a handful of tracks to spin ever, and they were only because they were absolute MUST haves that I couldn’t find for free anywhere. The VAST majority of time when i go “yeah that’s cool, I’d spin that” and I can’t find it for free anywhere, I’ll just forget it. There are a million other tracks I can get for free that are just as good… And boom, they’ve just lost the promo they’d get from being spun at events.
I agree 100% with your first part, people need to get away from the idea that being signed to a record label = $… or having a release = $ especially within the EDM scene. I’m sure the guys that have releases on Beatport etc can say for sure, but I doubt any medium-mid-tier artists make anything beyond a nice little amount of pocket money out of their yearly releases, and definitely not a fair amount considering the usual hours of work that goes into a track. Unless you’re a top of the line producer, EDM productions are nothing more then a good promotional tool or a creative outlet.
BUT.
What do you mean by if you can’t find it for free you won’t play it? Surely that massively limits what you can play? Unless you mean pirated copies which is a whole different thing.
Not only padi is zealot on that, I am as well. If you can’t imagine why we can not endorse software product piracy, this says more about you than the entire community that made DJTechTools or its’ moderation.
Just think what would happen if we were to discuss piracy and even endorse it?
If thinks go completely pear, it could mean the end of this community!
It’s quite easy to state that moderators get zealous, but it’s more difficult to think about the bigger picture here (and having to act up on it being a moderator).
Please think about that before making any bold statements in future.
I understand the reason for the rule. I’m just disputing the interpretation and enforcement OF the rule. I was making a targeted reference about the other day, when padi deleted a comment and “warned me” when I had in no way condoned or suggested piracy, just suggested someone look into getting traktor for free, and warned him not to talk about piracy, as it would be deleted. It was abuse, and he’s not been able to show me where it’s written that I broke a rule, nor come up with a defense, so I’m not going to let it go until there’s some resolution.
Further, this shouldn’t really be clogging up the forum, so if you want to discuss it, feel free to PM me. I only post this in the open so that it’s at least known that there’s something going on on the moderator side.
If you got stuff to address, do it to us directly, don’t fill topics with this information.
(Also, if you do fill other topics with this, don’t expect us not to answer.)
How did you get into the position of Moderator again? Clearly your objectiveness and ability to act without personal bias wasn’t taken into consideration. Neither was your judgement, as you’ve just warned that you’ll continue to fill other threads with this discussion.
Exactly. The market is just saturated. Anyone who wants to can release a track, so there are so many that it stops being worth it to sift through all the garbage. I honestly doubt it’s possible to get a considerable about of attention on a track, no matter how incredible it is, without outside marketing. This is why trying to sell these tracks on top of that is just such a joke.
Seen on youtube somewhere some guy interviewed Zedd and Dillon Francis, they both said, release your stuff for free unless it is TOP tier, then try get it signed to a decent label, medium tier and free downloads will you get you a bigger fanbase, oh and top40 remixes get you well known if theyre good.
