How to get your music onto Beatport

If you make dance music then the chances are you've heard of "Beatport". In their own words:  "Beatport is the recognized leader in electronic dance music downloads for DJs and club music enthusiasts."  Whilst certainly not the largest online audio store they are certainly the most recognised.  They certainly have the power to make careers - with progressive house producer Deadmau5 and Steve Duda amongst those whose careers have been launched through the site.

Beatport are renowned as having a strict policy in regard to their record labels.  In order to launch a deal with them you have to either be a recognised label and have some marketing muscle behind you.  They rarely deal with "vanity labels" - those labels set up just to deal with one artist - unless you are the kind of artist who can guarantee large volumes of sales.  In addition they monitor all sales - if you're sales dip below $500 per quarter then the chances are they'll cull you from their roster.

By Jez with 59 comments

Soundcloud announce "Labs" - app functionality through Soundcloud

Earlier today Alex, founder of Soundcloud announced the arrival of Soundcloud Labs - a new site dedicated to applications based on the Soundcloud platform.

Launching SoundCloudLabs (phone message) by Alex

The announced applications so far include:

• Social Unlock - a reciprocal social network application similar to tweetforatrack.com whereby users can download a track for free in return for a mention on twitter or facebook.
• Takes Questions - allows "fans" to interact with bands by recording questions which are then sent to the musician which they can reply to.
• Soundcloud Importer - allows users to import an audio file from a private phone line or by email
• Gmail plugin - embeds a soundcloud player in a gmail message
• Gobbler - a bulk upload and tagging utility

Social network allows you to link directly to your soundcloud account and lets users download via a page.  you can see this in action (for a limited time - until Sunday 14th) here:

http://socialunlock.com/celebrity-murder-party/ladyhawke-my-delerium-celebrity-murder-party-remix--2

There are hundreds more apps that other developers have created including an ipad beatbox app by Gorillaz and Korg, Soundcloud desktop and a Tunecore distribution application.

The direct to distribution applications in particular appear to be very useful - linking in directly with many other outlets using Soundcloud as the base.

Youlicense is a licensing application which allows you to advertise on the youlicense database for inclusion in films, tv, video games, websites, corporate applications and so on.

By Jez with 1 comment

Soundcloud Secrets: When to follow people

Soundcloud secrets - when to use following and when not to. at My car by The Always Unprofessional

By Jez with 1 comment

How to create a Facebook Fan page for your band using Root Music

As you probably are well aware, the ubiqutous facebook is currently the king of the social network – at least in the western hemisphere. It is increasingly being used as a method for connecting musicians and bands directly to the fans. But until recently it's basic graphical interface has meant that bands have very little control over it's appearance – and just exactly what can be embedded.

Root music attempts to solve that problem by providing a connecting interface between Facebook, Youtube and Soundcloud. This allows fans to view, interact, like, listen to your music and also to buy it through one simple web page.

They provide a basic free service which allows you to put a player and some basic interactive tools onto your facebook fan page, and a paid service where you have a greater degree of control over how the page looks. Monthly subscription starts at $1.99 per page per month.

The basic procedure is as follows:

By Jez with No comments