Kickstarter / Bandcamp / etc - C or D?

A good business model that adapts to these topsy-turvy download-y times? Or tantamount to groveling? Also, which is better?

They both seem pretty great to me, but also very different. Does bandcamp involve funding?

bandcamp and kickstarter appear to be two very different things xpost

Does bandcamp involve funding?

no

Oh, I see. Bandcamp is the 'pay what you like' site, then?

Friend of mine is funding their thesis film thru Kickstarter (pretty successfully, it seems)

pledgemusic is something similar to kickstarter but just specific to music

right now you can help fund the new cast and cornershop records

aw. i have a bittersweet feeling about kickstarter. it is cool and all, but we had $1400 pledged towards the soulstreamers which would have totally helped get us off the ground, but we lost it all since we didn't meet the entire goal. it was sad because at least with the $1400 we would have paid off the trailer and been partially on the way there...

what was your goal?

Bandcamp has been a solid 'C'. Kudos to them for not adding in a whole bunch of myspace/facebook 'networking' guff and having an A+ stats section.

What is Kickstarter?

funding site for the arts

good if you have fans

which means it would be useless for me

I mean, we were very short of our goal. I am just saying that the funds would have help, even if it wouldn't have gotten us on the road.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/344806759/soulstreamers-a-mobile-music-project-to-keep-vinyl

helped, obv.

you did pretty fucking good, it seems to me. Sorry you didn't make it!

Now who here wants to pay for my next film?

Yeah, we did really well. That was my point. We could have used that money and instead lost all of it because it is all or nothing with Kickstarter. :( In retrospect, this project would already be on it's way if we had that $1400 back then so I guess we should have made the goal lower. Instead, we still don't have a renovated trailer and we missed out on $1400 that people were wanting us to have.

The Mekons just funded a movie doc through kickstarter. They had some big name literary and musicial assistance

I would pay for new record by favorite artist X. Specially after all the downloading I have done in my life. Roky Erickson should do this, would be rad.

if you hit your target on kickstarter and get more pledged, do you get to keep that? would be handy if you set a lower target to at least get some cash rolling in, maybe.

Yes, you get to keep whatever you raise

in my experience (that is, watching/contributing to other people's stuff) for kickstarter you really need a decent fanbase coming in. if you're really lucky the kickstarter people will feature you, but you tend to need the former first

that said, if you have that it's great. know someone who raised >31K from an originally 8K project

yeah Kickstarter is tricky because their whole thing is they don't want you to raise half your goal and have a bunch of people still expecting you to finish your project without the whole amount you needed to get it done. you CAN kind of cheat the system by having some 3rd party help you meet the goal as kind of a loan, so that you can at least collect what had been pledged legitimately, which I'm not saying whether or not that's what happened with my project, but I'm just saying.

ok

I'm releasing my next album through bandcamp, I think. We're doing two songs a month for six months and then we'll actually have a vinyl pressed and sell that, but everyone downloads everything anyway so why not make it easy on them, frankly.

kickstarter: yeah good if you have fans or family. a friend financed the mxing of her album via kickstarter, but I think her family kicked in a lot of it. she was also relentless about nagging people on facebook which I'd have a problem doing.

isn't a one time ilxor heavily involved w/ kickstarter? anyway a ton of local (athens, ga) acts have used it, i think one even got mentioned in some times writeup about kickstarter; alot of local acts (generally the more redneck punk ones) regard it w/ disgust. it's basically a venture capital model applied to arts charity right? totally think it's a good thing.

if you hit your target on kickstarter and get more pledged, do you get to keep that? would be handy if you set a lower target to at least get some cash rolling in, maybe.

― cereal bad boy (haitch), Monday, 20 December 2010 04:00 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes, you get to keep whatever you raise

So, if you were going to do something anyway with your own money, why not get a Kickstart thing, get some peeps to donate $, then donate to your 'goal' yourself if you're short and you'll be less out of pocket in the short term?

Which one time ilxor?

i love bandcamp. a lot of my favorite bands are on it, i've discovered new bands through it, and i'm putting my own stuff there instead of myspace.

So, if you were going to do something anyway with your own money, why not get a Kickstart thing, get some peeps to donate $, then donate to your 'goal' yourself if you're short and you'll be less out of pocket in the short term?

― The Jolly Roget's Thesaurus (S-), Monday, December 20, 2010 1:12 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you can't donate to your own project (at least not with your own name/bank account -- obviously you can have a middleman or something)

i like Band Camp a lot too btw, a lot of the local acts i cover have taken to it and it's become a really nice to way to keep track of artists who previously i had to go on goddamn MySpace to hear new stuff from

bandcamp is great.

i'm deeply suspicious of bands raising money to make albums via kickstarter though. maybe i'm just being a hater, but there's something weird about wanting your friends & fans pay for the entirety of your recording + mixing + mastering + duplication.

the other angle is that the band kickstarters that i've seen present it as "recording is expensive!". while i'm all about keeping studios in business, it seems like asking people to pay for your studio time is the easy way out when everyone else is buying some gear of their own, learning how to use it, and becoming at least somewhat self-sufficient.

But a lot of the Kickstarter projects I've looked at will promise you a copy of the final product with your donation, so it's essentially like paying a few extra bucks above the cost of the cd to see that the cd gets made in the first place.

I'm in for Marissa Nadler's new album through Kickstarter. Was in the I Like Trains pledgemusic one too, but Marissa's seems better value.

yeah...w/ music projects i think using Kickstarter treads a fine line. because either you have a fanbase and probably don't NEED to ask for the money (or wouldn't if you'd managed your career a little better or had slightly better luck), or you have no substantial fanbase and you're just kind of asking family and friends to help you make a CD they probably won't listen to. my project was a research-intensive book project, i don't know if that exactly makes my use of it better in any way, i may be a hypocrite, i'm just saying.

I think the chief problem I have with Kickstarter, at least as far as funding music projects goes, is that musicians are often terrible at managing money. Someone I know in a middling indie band (who shall remain nameless) put up a Kickstarter a year or so and got a fair amount of money to put towards the recording of a new album. One year on and there's no sign of the album, and I see him getting asked questions about it on Facebook all the time, with vague "it's coming soon" promises from him in return. I don't exactly know what he's done with the money, but I'm pretty sure most of it's been blown on boozing and partying.

So, if you were going to do something anyway with your own money, why not get a Kickstart thing, get some peeps to donate $, then donate to your 'goal' yourself if you're short and you'll be less out of pocket in the short term?

― The Jolly Roget's Thesaurus (S-), Monday, December 20, 201

That was our idea, but at the last minute when I tried to do that, I was made aware that I couldn't. I was trying to find someone - anyone - to donate (even just in theory) the last bit to make it happen but to no avail.

yeah there's a lot of ins and outs of how KS works that sometimes you don't know or think about until you've started your project -- really that's the main reason i'm being pretty forthright in this thread about how mine went down, in case the info helps anyone else here down the road

Trying again?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/344806759/soulstreamers

Oh, I know Heather! At least I know her from the store in Knoxville. Rad store, great gal. I'm tapped but I know some folks who might be into this - will alert 'em. This is a really cool idea.

Friendly advice - I'd offer some sort of physical product (I'm assuming these mixes you're offering are sent via email?) in exchange for pledges.

Thanks for that offer! You are very sweet. The mixes offered as incentives, though, are the actual mixes named on kickstarter and recorded live by the three of us. We send out the actual mix with our own covers and such.

Are you in Knoxville? When did I meet you? I live in Kill Devil Hills now, though. I left Lost and Found in December to move out here.

Verbena dudes / Wooden Wand just launched one of these

whoa. just found out that one of the cofounders of kickstarter is a guy i went to college with. worked at the college radio station with him. he also posted on ILX for a while.

started this thread e.g.

New from the DFA...

Yancey is one of the kickstarter cofounders?

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_kickstarter/all/1

yeah i thought it was common knowledge that yancey was one of the main KS guys. also i always thought of him as a pretty major part of ILM for however many of the early years he was posting.

I read his on-again/off-again blog for a couple years before I even found ILM and was glad to find him here. Was disappointed when he stopped posting. Cool that that's what he's up to these days.

kickstarter kickin knowledge

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkck96gjE71qz4ede.png
Projects that reach 30% of their funding goal succeed more than 90% of the time. You can see that as the line turns green, the percent of projects that succeed approaches 100%.

that's kind of a "no duh" statistic though, isn't it?

i mean the curve could be steeper or flatter i guess but it's kind of like saying "people who grow to be 5'9" are more likely to end up over 6 feet tall"

we were all 3 feet tall once

i mean the curve could be steeper or flatter i guess but it's kind of like saying "people who grow to be 5'9" are more likely to end up over 6 feet tall"

― hong does your geirden gro (some dude), Friday, April 29, 2011 7:20 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

i mean, no, not at all. it's more like saying "people that grow to be 3 feet tall almost always end up 10 feet tall."

fwiw on the clickthrough there's way more

yeah, i guess that's a more accurate way of putting it. just seems like a pretty predictable and logical stat that they're dropping like a revelation or truth bomb imo.

idk i mean i phrased it the way i did because the idea that projects reaching 30% get funded fully almost every time is really surprising to me, i would have expected there are a lot of projects that stalled out at higher numbers, or that if there was a threshold like this it would have been much higher--"get to 30% & statistically you're basically there" is way more surmountable as a goal than "promote this until you are all the way there, cause it won't happen otherwise"

btw al i'm following this stuff/bumping this thread cause some ppl i run with are thinking about moving to kickstarter to fund some art projects and i actually wanted to tap yr experience on this, so def don't let me make it sound like i know what i'm talking about.

haha no it's cool -- i guess i have a different way of looking at how KS tends to work for people but i don't know if it's necessarily because of my personal experience with it. but sure lemme know if you have any questions.

By itself, the graphic doesn't mean a lot. For example, what's the breakdown is dollar/values
as goals.

How does it skew when comparing projects that ask for trivial funding as opposed to those requesting more serious money? What's the impact of publicity or recommendation by big name linkage?

Also, from the pov of the non-user, there's no way to gauge how hard 30 percent is to reach. Is it just a meaningless pass through point on the way to full funding? As presented here, it looks fairly ambiguous without clarification.

seems like people are more reluctant to be the first ones to jump in, or to fund something that looks like a futile effort, but happy to keep the momentum going and give it that last push.

that i think is true, but perhaps less true than that imo your project either has what it takes to go the long haul, or is just nowhere near it, with little in between.

Ok my friends all use bandcamp and soundcloud, but I've been doing the mediafire for years now, but I'd like to branch out. What are the differences between the two? Which is better? I really like the soundcloud presentation, and the streaming embedded files, but I wouldn't mind being able to charge for things. Is that a bandcamp thing only? Also, does anyone ever make money off it? Most of my stuff is covers, too, so I don't know if those sites will allow them. Opinions? Suggestions?

i think soundcloud is way better for sharing, but is not geared towards selling at all - you can link to where your stuff is for sale but can't sell directly on soundcloud.

you can share things fine on bandcamp and it is probably a lot more flexible though. i think there is no good reason not to use both.

Also, does anyone ever make money off it?

i'd say we're not in the black yet but it has definitely been worth having

Are there any reasons to choose soundcloud? Other than prettier embed graphics?

well, one good thing is there's an android app for it, and bandcamp won't stream on android

also soundcloud 'feels' better for non-releases, demos etc as bandcamp is more geared towards "albums", but that's more just my opinion

also the social networking aspect of SC that BC pretty much doesn't have, if that floats one's boat

Can you sell albums/songs on Soundcloud?

not directly, but you can link to stores/bandcamp etc

I think i post new stuff more frequently on bandcamp, just like the layout better. soundcloud i do mixes (tho also mixcloud now), covers, "singles"

hey, thought i'd just do a little bit of shameless self-promotion...i've started a kickstarter to get a digital compilation i just put out for free pressed on vinyl. exclusive tracks from amen dunes, wooden wand, sore eros, xray eyeballs, the renderers, black eagle child and bunches more. there's a link from the kickstarter page to download it. alright, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1671364068/press-blackburns-various-deficiencies-vol-2-on-vin

a more important chart

http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4db9a1cd49e2ae83320e0000/kickstarter-graph.jpg

totaling funding, projects in aggregate.

wow. nearly doubling since the beginning of the year.

as someone on my facebook said: 33 grand to start a blog?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ricleichtung/ad-hoc

kickstarter abuse?

although they do say that they are gonna do a print version too. there is that.

Pretty good NYT story on Kickstarter the other day, they interviewed Yancey.

yancey s.? what's he up to?

hunter hunt-hendrix isn't the liturgy guy's real name is it? the lana del ray of metal. or maybe it is. kinda unbelievable, but you never know.

Corunning Kickstarter! I had almost forgotten that myself -- it's mentioned upthread.

Meantime, Doug Mosurock on this blog thing is a treat. As are his commenters:

https://www.facebook.com/mosurock/posts/2962663298311

ugh, that mosurock thing makes me WANT to donate to this adhoc thing

It can't be any more odious than requiring FB membership in order to read the damned thing. Data mine THIS, Zuckerberg.

i don't understand some of the stuff on kickstarter that has like $10,000+ in funding. i thought people were poor now.

the whole IDEA of kickstarter is that you can raise that kind of money from a large number of people who might only be able to individually contribute in the single or double digits, dude

yeah haven't you seen Breaking Bad?

how much money do you think i could make with a kickstarter to never post on ilx ever again?

not as much as some people!

:(

although an enterprising mod could easily intervene and say "just give me the money, i'll permaban them for half the price"

idgi why would that make you frown

i want a lot of money, have no skills or talent

be more annoying then.

come on, you can do it.

I want all my favorite bands to go on Bandcamp. I like that Relapse has all their bands on Bandcamp. However, their $10 price point is too high. I can hold out and often get the CD for that much or less used or at a show. I think a good model would be $5 to $7 for established bands, and choose yr price for new bands seeking an audience. I think I've convinced a couple bands to get on the Bandcamp wagon. 2 down, thousands to go.

Shit, I only just realized this was Yancey after reading that NYT article yesterday!

That's awesome, now I like Kickstarter even more (I like it quite a bit anyway).

Yeah, I only put two and two together when I read it as well -- which given his role's mentioned earlier on the thread shows how much I pay attention sometimes!

seriously dude. you need to pay more attention to ILX.

meanwhile, those dudes got 37 grand in pledges for their blog:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ricleichtung/ad-hoc

i guess if you see it as a publication, and you want to actually pay people to write, which i think we all agree is a fine thing, what's wrong with that??

i just think its kind of amazing!

i guess i would be bitter too if i was an ex-zinester like the facebook dude upthread

My friend's husband just got 3 million for a video game, which is pretty insane to me! Kickstarter worked for them, for sure.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure

seriously dude. you need to pay more attention to ILX.

Well I only just learned about the place. Been around long?

http://www.wbur.org/2012/05/04/amanda-palmer-kickstarter

that's a lot of money!

almost $500,000!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour?ref=live

you know she used to live with an ilxor. i'm not saying who...it was geeta! i remember that cuz i had to ask geeta who she was. or i had to google her. but i do remember the dresden dolls group.

sitting in a wheelchair strumming a ukulele

i can extrapolate from that how awesome her music must be

who knew steampunks had so much money? those patents they filed for steam-powered crossbows must be paying off.

inadvertent beneficiaries of the spike in commodities prices

Neil Gaiman pimps it like fuck, because obviously they need the money.

My friend's husband just got 3 million for a video game, which is pretty insane to me! Kickstarter worked for them, for sure.

― Kelsey Glamour (Nijoli), Tuesday, April 3, 2012 1:28 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wait... you know Tim Schaeffer and his wife!?

I like Bandcamp over all, though their cutesy "See how we made that easy for you? That's right! We're your best pals for life. Uh huh!" ultra-user-friendly chat is kind of nauseating

true

kickstarter does a similar thing.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legupmgmt/deacon-animal-collective-at-the-festival-in-the/comments

deacon animal collective at the festival in the comments

Sounds like the solution for a game of Clue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZ65pUQxyQ

The primary misunderstanding, Dibb told me, is the belief that he received any of the $26,000. In reality, all of that money has gone directly to TEMEDT, he says. "I think the Kickstarter was up for a day or two before I realized that I felt incredibly uncomfortable about the idea of asking people to fund a trip for me to go to Africa... that's why the project turned into a charity thing."

http://pitchfork.com/news/48012-animal-collectives-deakin-apologizes-for-kickstarter-controversy-explains-delayed-solo-material/

I love how all these people I know are asking for 15K to produce an indie recording. I wish they would just be transparent about the whole thing and say "I know I easily record this myself w/some decent mics, a good room and pro tools, but I really want to spend three weeks in NY w/the guy who recorded band x". I'm going to hit all these guys up and kickstart a second iPad for my home and a summer trip to Kauai.

I really want to spend three weeks in NY w/the guy who recorded band x

what's wrong with that?

"I'VE GOT SOME PERFECTLY GOOD TIN CANS AND STRING RIGHT HERE"

what's wrong with that?

I just can't warm up to the idea of begging people on social media outlets to finance personal vanity projects.

And yes, purchasing your own mics and learning pro tools is totally equivalent to tin cans and strings.

I mean jesus christ get a subscription to tape op and figure it out.

I really want to spend three weeks in NY w/the guy who recorded band x

who would want to spend three weeks in NY with ray manzarek

lol

but for real, i think this every time i see a kickstarter for making a record. like, almost every other musician i know has spent the time to learn how to make good-sounding records themselves (and in the process acquired skills & gear that they'll be using for years to come), why can't you?

and i know that there are valid answers to that question (some musicians are just not cut out to be recording engineers too, some bands need to record together live in a good-sounding room) but it still bugs me, especially when the recording budgets seem inflated.

i've undoubtedly made this exact post before.

I just can't warm up to the idea of begging people on social media outlets to finance personal vanity projects.

And yes, purchasing your own mics and learning pro tools is totally equivalent to tin cans and strings.

― Darin, Friday, September 28, 2012 3:47 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean jesus christ get a subscription to tape op and figure it out.

― Darin, Friday, September 28, 2012 3:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Which is only going to cost you single digit thousands of dollars, 20x as much time, and produce a worse result?

yeah there really is, among unknown indie types, a bit of unspoken difference of philosiphies between people who really go out of their way to work w/ famous people or get together a budget for a 'name' studio/producer/etc. and people who happily work DIY or within their budget/peer group.

I have a subscription to Tape Op and have been recording at home for over 20 years. But it's cost me thousands of dollars and I'm just barely getting to the point where the stuff I'm recording is where I want it to be. If somebody wants to just focus on their writing and performing and not learn all of that stuff, then they're a lot smarter than I was. I'm pretty sure that Emitt Rhodes even admitted in a tapeop interview once that the home recording was a big distraction that ultimately slowed him down.

If a band has 1000 fans who are willing to give them $20 to fund the professional recording that they're dreaming of then why not?

xps

yeah there really is, among unknown indie types, a bit of unspoken difference of philosiphies between people who really go out of their way to work w/ famous people or get together a budget for a 'name' studio/producer/etc. and people who happily work DIY or within their budget/peer group.

But there's also a reasonable space in between those two positions. DIY doesn't have to be an ideology. Paying to have certain parts of the production taken care of professionally is not necessarily the same thing as working with a famous name.

I mean jesus christ get a subscription to tape op and figure it out.

― Darin, Friday, September 28, 2012 3:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Which is only going to cost you single digit thousands of dollars, 20x as much time, and produce a worse result?

I have a subscription to Tape Op and have been recording at home for over 20 years. But it's cost me thousands of dollars and I'm just barely getting to the point where the stuff I'm recording is where I want it to be.

hey guys i think you're paying too much for tape op, i get it for free

For some reason the Kickstarter backlash inspires some kind of rabid free-market feelings in me that I never feel in any other situation. If people want to give money to fund some ridiculous vanity project then they should. If people figure out how to convince others to fund their dumb vanity projects than more power to them! If you pledge money to some flakey indie artist to fund something that doesn't yet exist and that thing never actually materializes, caveat emptor.

oh yeah i know. but i HAVE known people who clashed over that. i knew a band who i think kinda broke up over the fact that the leader got the whole band to pay way more to have a an out-of-town 'name' mix their last record when everyone knew that someone more affordable in town could have done probably just as good a job for a fraction of the price. (xpost)

I don't even think 10K or 15K sounds like an especially bloated budget, name or no, although I've never been in a band that spent that much. We did one record for about $1500 including mastering, but there were serious problems with it because we rushed to record all the songs live in two days, leaving us very little time to get the sound of anything exactly right. Anyway I

uh sorry, about orphan "anyway I"

I have also been involved with the home-recording end of things a couple of times (not as engineer) and it can be kind of nightmarish. One record just sprawled for a year and never got finished. The other one just didn't sound right. It seems a little like doing your own car repair or home renovation -- it's just not going to work for everyone.

Anyway, I'm concerned that the kickstarter backlash leaves musicians at kind of an impasse. It used to be ok to sell music. Now that's not ok anymore. So there's this new model of asking fans to fund you. But those fans are going to decide what's too much to spend on a record, how much money you should make, what they think sounds extravagant in your budget, etc all from a distance. And if you succeed, then you look like a shitheel for using kickstarter anymore, even though, remember, it's not ok to sell your music.

OTM

Which is only going to cost you single digit thousands of dollars, 20x as much time, and produce a worse result?

Initially, yes - but in my experience, the quality/time factors improve exponentially each recording. And 15K (which seems to be the going rate for a kickstarter album pitch) buys you a LOT of good gear. Seems smarter to me to try and set yourself up in a sustainable situation where you can finance your own recordings DIY long as you want. I highly doubt anyone is getting KS cash for a second album.

I have a subscription to Tape Op and have been recording at home for over 20 years. But it's cost me thousands of dollars and I'm just barely getting to the point where the stuff I'm recording is where I want it to be. If somebody wants to just focus on their writing and performing and not learn all of that stuff, then they're a lot smarter than I was. I'm pretty sure that Emitt Rhodes even admitted in a tapeop interview once that the home recording was a big distraction that ultimately slowed him down.

Well, I guess everyone's mileage varies.

I'm just pissy about this lately, since I've been hit up repeatedly on FB for this sort of thing.

studio vs. home recording is definitely a very personal thing, everyone's gotta figure it out for themselves and obviously that involves money as well as the nature of their music and working methods. i'm fortunate to have a friend w/ a studio who's been generous w/ his time, but i also kind of dream of being self-sufficient enough someday to do home recordings that i'm happy with.

I'm also biased by living in NYC, where pretty much no one who is a musician lives in an apartment with a soundproofable extra room, or any kind of extra room.

Also I have a super nerdy affinity for all of the technical stuff and have since I was a young kid. Recording always seems easy and fun to me but I have a lot of friends who really don't have any aptitude for it at all. I think it's the sort of thing that can actually be quite difficult if you don't really enjoy it. Anyone can learn to get to a certain basic level but beyond that I can see how it would be overwhelming if it's not something you love.

i'm a big believer in home recording and being able to substitute time & care for money, but it's easier with electronic/sample-based music i do where many of the elements are in-the-box, and the acoustic sounds are sort of meant to show the limitations in recording. i recognize that it can be a headache to try to make a big-sounding guitar and drums record at home, although i definitely have friends who do it successfully.

I find getting decent drum recordings at home is still close to impossible. That's the one thing I wish I could outsource.

amen

fuck drums

I find getting decent drum recordings at home is still close to impossible. That's the one thing I wish I could outsource.

yeah, I think you glossed over the "good room" part of your original post a bit. easier said than done.

Try the Yeti Blue USB mic. You can place it pretty much anywhere in a room w a drum kit and it sounds really really good.

That's cool - I've been using a snow ball mic for demos on my computer for a few years... didn't know about the other mics.

It's crazy how good it sounds, for just over $100.

Yeah my bro has a Snowball and he loves it.

yeah, they're pretty great

Kickstarter has such a shaky business model, it's inevitable that a backlash would come. I'm surprised no one's started a blog tracking all the projects that haven't materialized and/or gifts that haven't been received. Maybe they have?

fuck drums

― have a sandwich or ice cream sandwich (Jordan), Friday, September 28, 2012 5:27 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

posts very much out of character!

i get decent drum sounds at home but then i have several thousand dollars of microphones helping me out

http://blog.bandcamp.com/2013/01/10/bandcamp-for-fans/

So... has anyone joined up? I have but I've not really bothered to use it yet.

yeah, though its usefulness beyond a reminder of purchases is yet to be revealed

i guess it's appropriate to mention in this thread that two of my favorite records of 2012 were kickstarter-funded numbers: driver friendly's bury a dream and the forecast's everybody left

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nLQK8uqcAY

The bandcamp fan pages are nice for some really basic social networking for artists at a small level. I bought some things that led to making a few connections with artists I like who bought my stuff in return. I think that works better than just emailing people out of the blue which can feel spammy. And I've found some good stuff by browsing though other people's collections. It's hard to tell if it will get better or worse the more popular it gets.

and I think it's kind of genius that you have to pay for something for it to appear in your collection. that's a lot more meaningful than a "like."

Legendary animator Ralph Bakshi doin' the Kickstarter thing:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphbakshi/last-days-of-coney-island-0?

why would bjork use kickstarter to raise money for this app thing of hers, rather than use her own many many millions? genuinely interested.

is it just simple greed or was there some bigger reason behind it? either way it failed miserably: 4% then dust

and the forecast's everybody left

Had no idea they had a 2012 album! Of course I never came across the 2010 one either.

why would bjork use kickstarter to raise money for this app thing of hers, rather than use her own many many millions? genuinely interested.

is it just simple greed or was there some bigger reason behind it? either way it failed miserably: 4% then dust

ha, I hadn't heard of that. but I wonder if they got tons of requests for windows and android compatibility and didn't want to bother with it, and now they can point to the failed kickstarter as an excuse not to do it.

http://www.factmag.com/2013/02/07/bjorks-kickstarter-cancelled-after-reaching-just-4-of-goal/

yeah I don't get why all of the headlines are saying it's a failure or embarrassment for bjork. it just seems like there aren't really enough interested android and windows users to justify porting it over, and it's a good thing she found that out ahead of time instead of just financing it herself.

its embarrassing that bjork tried to kickstart an android port in the first place imho

(not cuz i have any strong feelings about android, but its such a mundane project)

It was cancelled way before the end of the kickstarter tho, right? Hard to imagine Bjork doesn't have extremely wealthy fans all around the world.

I mean, "Cheetahmen 2" is getting funded through kickstarter.

why would bjork use kickstarter to raise money for this app thing of hers, rather than use her own many many millions? genuinely interested.

You're making an assumption here

didn't the initial album release have a bunch of multimedia stuff going on? that was presumably funded by her and/or her label? it just seems goofy to do all that stuff, and then over a year later go "hey we want to do more of the same that wasn't in the album budget, you wanna foot the bill for this one?"

and not only that, but the same stuff, just for... WINDOWS PHONES!

sorta takes a bit of the mystique out of the whole bjork aura imo

You're making an assumption here

Which assumption? I'm guessing this isn't accurate: http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/singers/bjork-net-worth/ but I'm certain someone of Bjork's standing can easily come up with 375k (she charged a fortune for her recent gig at MIF). If there's another, less graspy, reason she went to Kickstarter then I'd like to know, hence my question.

maybe google or microsoft offered to sponsor it so they cancelled the kickstarter

xp I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying it's an assumption. I can't think of any activity of hers in the last ten years that would've equalled a big payday, if anything, the opposite. That said, I wouldn't be surprised either if she is actually worth $40m (and good on her if she is)

I'd be v surprised if Bjork can't come up with the money to fund this herself, or her record label. Whole thing smacks of greed, syphoning money off her gullible plebs. Could well be wrong though, looking forward to finding out from upcoming interviews.

yeah i mean the Biophilia box set was $800

I always forget that aspect of the Bjork economy, that everything is so expensive, nm

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1064179477/indie-bikes-and-beer

I've been into music since I was a kid and I have been always been captivated by finding new artists with new sounds. For the most part, I've listened to "obscure" indie bands whose under the radar status meant true talent. After friends and family repeatedly asked me for musical suggestions, I chose not to send them a playlist and instead decided that I would start a blog.

far more infuriating than the bjork thing imo

more like max nagl etc

The name was almost too obvious...

Indeed.

I wanted to find a way to incorporate beer and bikes into this indie music blog that I had scheming in my helmeted noggin.

Might well have put some money in this if he'd called it "My Helmeted Noggin," tbh

can someone explain to me under what circumstances two separate people might have pledged $325 or more to make this happen?

1. mom
2. dad

3. Gonna need to see those "acoustic sessions" happen

I can't figure out whether kickstarter is about "niche fandoms have incredibly useful new way to fund projects" or "people who come from money have new more socially acceptable way to nudge similarly situated friends/relatives to fund their enthusiasms" -- must be some proportion of each but what are the proportions?

The first post was a review of the lovely Cambridge duo, You Won't, and their debut album, Skeptic Goodbye. To be honest, I was kind of starstruck upon receiving positive feedback from the band after the post- I was honored to be given such high praise for my work. I imagine this is how a musician feels when someone thoughtfully reviews their work. It was at this point that I knew the site could be something more than just my musings on indie music, bike news, and good beer.

lol

I'm sure there are people that use kickstarter to ask their parents for money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45_iqB4RO34

Dear everybody,

On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.

We were wrong.

Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:

* The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly.
* Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.

These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.

Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.

Where does this leave us?

First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.

Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.

Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.

Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.

We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.

Thank you,

Kickstarter

right on

Kind of odd that Kickstarter does not see the projects hosted on Kickstarter, since I thought you had to submit a proposal and stuff and for it to go through a selection process before it was approved.

the objectionable material was in a thread on reddit that was going to make up the primary source for the book and not within the proposal itself

not that the material wasnt douchey but if the new way to get funding is thru kickstarter and now its not going to not allow controversial speech/art/ideas then we're fucked tbh

yeah the reason it took so long for any kind of protest seems to be that the proposal made it appear much more benign (xp)

http://pitchfork.com/news/51526-universal-launches-crowdfunding-project-to-reissue-albums-on-vinyl/

that doesn't really strike me as "crowdfunding" so much as just gauging interest in advance to determine what to reissue? I mean Universal has the actual funds to do all of these, they just want to sell in advance so they don't overpress anything. Seems pretty smart, but if they sell it as a kickstarter-like venture I think it will just put people off.

well you have to pre-order so it's basically the same as far as the consumer goes right?

Cannot walk around a record store without tripping over a bjork boiphilia record

valleywag.gawker.com/kickstarter-project-canceled-after-dude-spends-all-the-912176282

The founders of Kickstarter told me, 'Spike, Kickstarter is for everybody.'

"...but it's especially for people who will give us a cut of the $1.25 million they're trying to raise."

http://gothamist.com/2013/07/25/spike_lee_defends_his_kickstarter_f.php

afaik spike lee has had a pretty hard time raising money in recent years, AND has been pretty generous with young/emerging filmmakers, and frankly, if he wants to do a kickstarter, he can damn well do so if he pleases

Not using your own money is kinda film fundraising 101. I can see why it's weird to fans but it's just how things are for most movie people, isn't it?

yeah...plus i doubt Spike is wealthy to the degree people might assume based on his level of fame. and it'd be stupid to just expect guys like him who don't make blockbusters but are famous to just self-fund movies til they go broke.

there is no way he's wealthy enough to self-fund.

i mean, there are very few people, particularly directors, who can just put a couple million dollars into a movie.

The number on the internet is Spike Lee is worth $40 million. Let's say he's worth half that, so only $20 million. Let's say he's worth half that, so only $10 million. In other words, sure, he could afford to chip in the $1.5 million he's asking for himself, even though he shouldn't. It's more irksome that he claims Hollywood won't fund his films because they feature black characters, forgetting that even everyone from Soderbergh to Spielberg have loudly decried how hard it is to get a movie greenlit given the current creatively bankrupt funding model. My guess is that Lee is having trouble raising funds partly because his track record is pretty erratic, not just in terms of box office but in terms of his often shitty movies. His docs have been pretty great, though, and his mainstream (or, fine, more white) movies have done OK (25th Hour, Inside Man); no idea how "Oldboy" will do. Point being, Lee has released a movie or two a year pretty much forever. HIs complaints sound a little bit like Prince complaining about record labels even as he manages to clog the world with mediocre product while selling out concert after concert.

where does that number come from? "one quarter of something i read on the internet" isn't really reliable math.

but even if all you say there is true: isn't that exactly WHY he should be kickstarting? what is the argument against it?

Lee has released a movie or two a year pretty much forever.

Great math bro

I meant that literally. Lee precedes us all.

http://whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/1-ENGINEER.jpg

Anyway, the $40 mil I got was from a google search of "what is Spike Lee worth" or something. I figure a fraction of a fraction of that, which was still generous.

There's no argument against Spike Lee Kickstater except that very few people seem to want to see Spike Lee movies.

Looking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Lee_filmography

There's not a year since 1986 without some Spike Lee joint or another.

there's 1987

and 1993, and 2007

the 'celebrity net worth' sites out there always seem to have wildly specious estimates based on the assumption that entertainers and athletes all invest wisely, signed nothing but perfectly fair contracts, and spend frugally.

setting aside what you think about Spike or the artistic potential of his future projects, it's pretty crazy that filmmakers who at their best deservingly command million(s) per film end up being told that they should be SPENDING that much to make a movie, not getting PAID that much. whether he has the audience to fund this particular movie, well, that's literally for the people to decide at this point.

Josh hates Math

It's also kind of funny that it's ok for random nobodies to ask for money for projects that might not ever see the light of day, but if a professional with a proven track record asks for money people get all offended by it.

Josh hates Math, Johnny hates Jazz.

It is a shame that Spike can't get greenlit. I'm not offended by the Kickstarter at all. Good for Spike. My point was just that the guy has kept plenty busy. We're not lacking Spike Lee joints with the exception of, fine, 1987, 1993 and 2007. Three years out of a little less than 30.

Also good for Spike for making me think, huh, what is Jim Jarmusch up to? The answer? A vampire movie! Filmed on location in Detroit, Cologne, Hamburg and Tangiers!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/dd/Only_Lovers_Left_Alive_poster.jpg/220px-Only_Lovers_Left_Alive_poster.jpg

The only thing Spike assured of his next movie is that it would be "not Blacula," but maybe he should reconsider.

would you please stop calling them joints

Spike's last wide theatrical release, Miracle At St. Anna, was 5 years ago. since then, he's done one limited/festival release narrative film, filmed a Broadway musical, and did 3 documentaries that aired on HBO, ESPN and ABC, respectively. and the closest he got to another big theatrical release was when he was shopping around a sequel of his last hit, Inside Man. that's not really the profile of 'guy who has no problem making the movies he wants to make.'

That's not really what I said. I said he's a guy who has no problem finding work, which means he gets paid. I mean, "one limited/festival release narrative film, filmed a Broadway musical, and did 3 documentaries that aired on HBO, ESPN and ABC" isn't bad for five years, is it? With the "Oldboy" remake a relatively high profile 2013 release? And "Oldboy" budget was $30 mil. I suppose Spike Lee might consider that mercenary work, but frankly, I couldn't imagine anything more mercenary than making "Inside Man 2."

I am so confused bc I don't even see where Spike complains. He complains a little bit about movie trailers. But he simply says he started to think of Kickstarter as a viable option for funding his own projects when his film students pointed out that other large projects (Braff, veronica mars) were funded. Is his use of Kickstarter for film funding equivalent to a complaint?

and someone like Spike doing a kickstarter makes more sense to me since a dinner reward with Spike actually has some value set by what his already established career means to the person kicking in the funding. When an unknown offers something like dinner for a ridiculous amount of funding, I'm always wondering who the fuck besides their mother would enjoy such a dinner.

It's also kind of funny that it's ok for random nobodies to ask for money for projects that might not ever see the light of day, but if a professional with a proven track record asks for money people get all offended by it.

― wk, Friday, July 26, 2013 2:55 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

otm

I think the idea is that the proven track record means they've had a shot already, some success, vs. random nobodies, who are trying to circumvent a system that's mostly shut its doors to them. In the case of music (this being ILM) I suppose there's a stronger case to be made for musicians asking for money. The budgets are relatively modest to make a record, and there's been a demonstrable decrease in money to be earned from traditional record sales, because many of the same fans that might consider donating have also been downloading their records for free. This is less of the case with movies and TV. There is downloading and some degree of shrinking profits, but there's still so much stupid money in those fields, and the reason studios don't greenlight people like Spike Lee is not because they lack the funds but because they're so greedy they keep pushing all that money into fewer overinflated projects. Which of course becomes more of a risk the bigger the budgets and commitments get. So Spike, like Soderbergh, is right to be disappointed in the current model, but Spike, like Soderbergh, is worth untold multiples (whatever the amount) of the aforementioned random nobodies, which makes asking for money appear a tad unseemly, however well-intentioned. But if he can reach his goal (Soderbergh chipped in $10k) and keep things pretty transparent, then it could be really useful catalyst for those clamoring for a return to better days in studio-sanctioned indie film. Or an alternative to them.

Apologies if already mentioned, but Helen Marnie from Ladytron offering a used swimsuit as an incentive to donate to her album recording is some next-level creepiness/desperation.

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/marnie

i'm surprised it sold after she noted "Will have it laundered of course!"

separating wheat from chaff on bandcamp is the pits.

i mean...would you go randomly listening to stuff willy nilly? i'm sure most of it's wack! i sometimes jump around the 'baltimore' tag on bandcamp to see what's going on the city but even then i gotta discriminate and be selective.

yeah, i was browsing by "location" tags.

animal collective dude still hasn't done shit

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legupmgmt/deacon-animal-collective-at-the-festival-in-the/comments

Apparently he has done shit, just hasn't finished shit

I sorta feel like Zelig when I come across someone in the NYT who sold me his James Brown box set

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/yancey-strickler.html

Kickstarter - D
Bandcamp - C

Just my two cents

So i just saw a Kickstarter for someone who is buying every copy of Speed and then wants to change his van and I drive around the country giving tours of his collection (because that's a good plan?). I'm not posting a link cos I don't want to give this guy any more publicity than he is already getting from me mentioning it. Is this what we've reduced ourselves to? Is this the bottom of the barrel? People that have no marketable skills beyond consuming? Privileged idiots relying on public charity to fuel their consumer addiction?

"Is this the bottom of the barrel?"

probably not

and then wants to change his van and I drive around the country giving tours of his collection

Nope, you've lost me there. You're driving around the country with this Speed guy?

No, he does that was a typo.

If he did the tours while always keeping his speed above 50, I'd deem this a worthwhile project

So I really like Bandcamp but my problem is I just write and record songs every now and then and don't have a pre-planned album, hence every time I add a track I have to add artwork and it's more or less posted as a digital single. Can you set up and in-the-works album, like there will be a page with this album and every time I come up w a new song I can put it in, maybe tweak the set listing, etc. Does anyone here use bandcamp and has done this? Seems like it would work.

Well there's the pre-order approach...also, Dominique did the song-a-day thing last year, organized into overall monthly albums.

I'm probably going to have it at $0 (with option to pay if they want) until it's complete. You can change that sort of thing after the fact?

i guess you could create a square band logo image to plug in where the image goes? or take the album cover (or a placeholder mockup image with the album title) and throw 'coming soon' or 'from the forthcoming album...' over the image? xp

you can change anything you want after the fact (songs, price, art, etc)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/garth-brooks-to-launch-digital-download-service-ghosttunes-1.2830131

GhostTunes, a name that grew out of Brooks’s nickname "G," launches Tuesday.

Memo to "G" - Unless you're Oprah, hubris is a lousy basis for corporate branding. And GhostTunes is a terrible name.

The site encourages artists to offer discounts to boost their sales and returns 80 per cent of sales to musicians, labels and publishers, compared with 70 per cent allotted by iTunes and Amazon.

Or uh, the 85-90 per cent allotted by Bandcamp, who don't encourage their artists to devalue their work.

The GhostTunes CEO is Randy Bernard, who formerly ran the Professional Bull Riders Inc. organization, as well as the IndyCar auto-racing sanctioning body.

Awesome.

Do you realise that from the 1st of January there are new EU VAT rules for digital services coming in which mean that VAT will now be payable in the buyer's country rather than that of the seller.

This also means that EU residents will need to be VAT registered to sell any amount to other EU countries as the local VAT-free thresholds won't apply. There is a "one-stop" scheme to help with VAT registration in all 28 countries(!) but you will still need to do quarterly returns ans deal with collecting information on customers and complying with Data Protection rules and so on.

Why do I mention this here? Because among many kinds of "services" it applies to selling music through Bandcamp. BC are doing as much as they can to help with this but until they can change to a system where they process the payments and pay the tax directly this is the situation. It also of course means that downloads will cost that much more.

The new rules were ostensibly designed to discourage large companies putting their services through countries with low VAT (i.e. Luxembourg) rates and allow for a more equal playing field for smaller business. In practice it's going to be next to impossile for many small businesses to realistically trade under those rules. Oh incidentally Luxembourg is getting 1.1 billion euros in compo over this and upping its VAT rate anyway.

Basically it's a massive fuckup. I should emphasise that BC are being characteristically sound as about this and should have a new system in place shortly. In the meantime if you think it affects you as a musician / label / music buyer or in other areas of digital stuff please look into it.

Please excuse typos - on a tiny phone screen here.

The reason music downloads come under e-services is the definition is along the lines of "primarily automated systems". The rules were drawn up in 2008 and obviously the nature of online music has changed since then.

Unfortunately for these beaurocrats they have also incurred the collective wrath of the downloadable felt craft designs massive so I don't see it ending well for them.

Wow this sounds a mess. Now this would affect purchasers of Bandcamp stuff based/released in Europe even if they're here in the States, say?

No it shouldn't affect prices for US buyers as far as I know. Some other non-EU countries are part of the scheme though I think

It's pretty confusing and most of the relevant bodies seem to be under/misinformed and offering poor information.

I know a lot of small UK ebook publishers are freaking out/giving up because of the rules.

This is a good article about Kickstarter: www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-the-rage-of-the-jilted-crowdfunder.html

Also my sister's husband has a Kickstarter going right now for a prospective business and it's stressing me out. They've raised a lot of money but still have a big chunk to go in the next couple of days.

I'm seeing something weird in my Bandcamp stats. I haven't really been very active (I put up an EP a week or two ago but didn't really promote it much) but this is my "Buzz" chart for the past two months:
http://imgur.com/I8RSsLY
The spikes around June 22 are when I put up the EP. But the other spikes all have either 65 or 66 direct visits, and they're exactly two weeks apart. They don't correspond to any actual listens to my music.

bandcamp question -- how to delete a tag on a track? a friend was trying to help me get my shit together on bc and she put a nonsense word there (no idea why) and now i can't get rid of it

Edit > Tags in the lower right

Thaaaank u

i still can't find the spot to delete tag -- i can add them in the edit screen but i can't get to this one nonsense tag to get rid of it
everything else has made sense and been more or less easy, but this is driving me nuts!

oh i guess you can set tags at artist, album, and track level. so try editing at each of those.

i did! i still can't get rid of it.
so irritating.

i got rid of it!

urgent question for bandcamp users: i know that i can upload as .wav, .flac, or .aif but the files i have are .aiff

1) i think i can convert via audacity but i don't know which one to convert to, if any
2) is there a format that people like better where the cover image is attached to the songs and everything is tagged correctly?

i have never done this before, excuse my noob questions

.aif and .aiff are the same.

ok
is that the one i should upload as then? is that a file type that people will not complain about?

I do FLAC cause it is smaller than WAV size-wise (and so loads faster plus I do looooonnng tracks and if they go over a certain size they won't load at all). That is all I have figured out though, i.e., FLACs make sense for me cause of the file size.

I have never had anyone complain, and I think they can request an MP3 if they want one too (i.e., don't want a large file on their hard drive or whatever).

there are a couple of long ones (8 and 12 min) so maybe i should try those first and then see
i don't have the pro account either so this may take a while?

Well, for me long means like 30 minutes or more (I post a number of live sets), so you should be A-OK with most formats, but the smaller the file the faster it loads of course.

ok that's good! i'll just leave them as is then

i forget, isn't there a track length limit for bandcamp?

Honestly, in terms of which one you use as source for bandcamp doesn't really matter, unless you have super high quality recordings, as people can choose what format they want to download, and the on-site player is independent of that.

http://amazon.bandcamp.com/

what the fuck?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1793481042/star-wars-open-world-rpg/description

already up to $15,000, unsurprisingly.

Pre Intro: This whole project was created solely by me, Devin Tripp. I do not have permission from Disney to create this game as of now. Disney has no part of this as of now. I have received a reply from Disney telling me to ask Lucas Films.

Like many of us when we were kids, we wanted to be like Luke Skywalker or obi juan Kinobi, but like all of us, we do not live in a galaxy far far away. There might be another way though. With all the open world RPGs out there how is there not a good one for Star Wars? I have decided to take matters into my own hands and write a story in the star wars universe that will fit inside a RPG video game that I have not created. I am currently looking into talking with Disney if I am able to do this. If not then there might have to be a compromise on the name or some other parts. I need your help. I am not a very good programmer, and I'm an even worst artist. I want to put this project into the hands of professionals, but in order to do that I need money to hire them. This was my dream as a kid I hope you can share my same compassion, thank you.

There are many people out there that have the wrong image when they think about this game so I will go into deep detail as much as i can to get people more excited about this. As I know there are other "very good" games over Star Wars, but within the bounds of good taste, I believe that these RPG's over Star Wars have not reached their full potential. I do not feel immersed in these games. I am not talking about a 1995/2005 game that could be created in a month or two. I am talking about a Star Wars RPG that will completely blow people away; like "Fallout 4", or "The Witcher 3" did. These RPG's set the benchmark of how the future of RPG's should look, and they are a good blueprint to go on. I want to make something that is like this in some respects, but goes even further. It will have the graphics of "Battlefront" or better with the feel of "The Witcher 3".

The game and story will also have a lot of choice. You will be able to choose which side you would like to be on. You can be evil and reside on the Darkside and rule the galaxy as you wish, or you could also bring peace about the galaxy. Both in their own respects have their perks. Speaking of perks: Like "Fallout 4" there might or might not be perks in the game. At least not the same as they are in "Fallout". I do not want to give away much about the story, but I will give away that you do not start out as a Jedi, but later become one. As you progress your skills get better as your ability to use the force. It is very exciting that I have already gotten backers. I will be providing updates every couple of days, and answering any questions that you might have. I am still answering others so please be patient.

- Thank you, Devin Tripp

there is no video, no interview, and no art past a poorly cropped Star Wars logo

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/292521457/i-want-to-put-punk-stuff-on-pogs-and-maybe-bart-si?ref=home_recs

Stupid.

still only at 1% funding :-/

http://i.imgur.com/ayWvFM3.png

http://www.rockfeed.net/2016/11/03/people-pissed-allegaeon/

something very insignificant i've noticed about bandcamp and what happens if you hit << while you're in the middle of a song: a lot of online services replicate what would happen if you were in the middle of a song and hit << on a CD player, i.e., they return to the beginning of the song you are currently listening to. bandcamp, instead, jumps to the song prior to the one you're currently listening to.

Pricing peeves:

1) Asking less for all tracks individually than for the album as a whole. Why u do that? Are we paying a premium for a neater looking collection and easier streaming or is it just sloppy arithmetic.

2) Asking more for the DL only than for a cassette (+DL). I've come across this quite a bit. It's nice for local buyers (while stocks last), but why ask overseas fans to pay more if they don't want to stump up the postage or care about physical? In addition there's VAT (~20%) on digital only for EU customers but NOT if it comes with a physical copy!

Do us a favour!

based on my experience as someone familiar with the pricing process, the answer to #1 is sloppy arithmetic -- they ask you to set an album price first, then they give you the option of selling the tracks individually. It would probably help with many people's arithmetic if they reversed the steps

Can anyone tell me if tracks put up on Bandcamp are licensed for radio broadcast? In other words, can I play them on the radio, as opposed to Spotify which is specifically NOT licensed for broadcast?

Is there any reason not to set up a Bandcamp page for a band?

not that i know of -- bandcamp is great

unless you don't want people to be able to listen to your music, then you should put your band's music somewhere else

nope

i mean it's a separate hassle from having your music auto-distributed to the traditional stores, but also it's fun, and it's responsible for by far the largest share of purchases of my band's music

I think the only limiting factor would be if you're a band with some sort of contract that denies you from doing so, but that's probably not a concern for very many people

Thanks - appreciated.

bandcamp app is almost unusable. does anyone here work for them, or know someone who does? if so tell em to get on that. the search function is insanely bad

bandcamp q for people who have multiple pages they manage:

i need to start a new one for a project that is not associated with any of my other projects. do you still need to have a separate email and login and all that if you want to start a new project (and don't have a personal page from which to branch things)?

halp
thank you in advance

I don't think you can have multiple bands with the same account. if you have gmail you can do the trick where you create a new account and for your email just put a period anywhere in the email address (ie John.smith@gmail instead of johnsmith@gmail). It'll treat it like a new email but the emails will come to your regular address.

I believe you need separate addresses to sign up but than can authorize your main account email to manage everything.

so confusing
i think i've got it under control now but my file is too big and the error message told me explicitly to "cut my ambient drone jam into smaller pieces"
lol!

"pay what you can" gives me existential dread for... well, several minutes but it's always tricky.

"pay what you can" gives me existential dread for... well, several minutes but it's always tricky.

― Funky Isolations (jed_), Saturday, 31 August 2019 00:35 (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Coincidentally I just found an article about this very subject, pretty good I think.

https://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/2019/08/31/name-your-price-value-underground-in-the-age-of-bandcamp/

thanks!

i keep going back and forth with the arguments the writer is making in that article ... starting with the overly simplistic take on the "DIY scene" ... maybe this is another case of America vs. Europe idk

I have spoken before about the true currency circulating being goodwill and it is more analogous to lifeblood oxygenating the scene than actual cash changing hands.

mostly true, but also no, and also it relates to a problem with the DIY scene ... because cash does change hands ... I think it's more accurate to say that the ever-circulating $20 is that "oxygenating lifeblood" and it also signifies goodwill, but it is still the $20 that goes from audience to artist to artist to audience member in the form of tips at the local where they are bartender, etc.. That's not the problem, the problem is "sustainability" or "continuity" because the "scene" is not completely outside the "system" and the goodwill will need to be converted into capitalist currency

otm sarahell - i found that article incredibly frustrating in ways that i could only draw out if i went through the article again, which i refuse to do.

Kickstarter Has Fired Two Union Organizers in Eight Days

If a union within the company is formed, Kickstarter will be the most prominent technology company with a unionized workforce.

This story is developing.

question: in my bandcamp collection, if something doesn't have the "appears in x other collections" thing underneath it, does it mean I'm the only person who has purchased it?

It could have been purchased by people without a profile/account, but otherwise yeah I think

Thanks, that makes sense. I'll imagine these artist's friends & family purchased w/o an account so I don't have to feel bad for them.

Yknow I don’t use push notifications for anything but I would actually like them for Bandcamp for when somebody I follow releases something new.

they send me email notifications of new releases for like every artist I've ever purchased anything by on there ever.

yeah I just signed up for that, guess that pretty much accomplishes the same thing lol

Yep and I get push notifications through the app for exactly that

Push notifications on a Bandcamp Friday can be.... a bit much lol.

otoh, I never would have scored my lovely blue first-run of the latest Mountain Goats tape if I had disabled them 🤷

Push notifications on a Bandcamp Friday can be.... a bit much lol.

Absolutely insane! I came here to post about this :)

Deeply insane; also when they started they had an issue where messages weren’t being sent as they should, clearly because those days were so popular. Thankfully that was cleared up and it’s been smooth sailing (if heavy emailing) since.

one could imagine a single push notification in digest format compiling announcements from every artist you're interested in.

The Friday emails are a bit crazy, I'm ok with it but it does became sort of a worklist. I just open up a bunch of tabs and listen to at least a track from everything, and usually end up finding some gems.

Hey so I've been working on a little something that allows people to make, play & share playlists using the Bandcamp platform that I've been calling BNDCMPR (Bandcamper).

Decided to put it into an open beta today at https://t.co/P93ziPghSy.

Any feedback would be sick (:

— ☕️ (@lonbeshiri) February 8, 2021

O_O

i haven't tried it yet, but uhh. . . fuck yeah?

do the artists get paid?

They don't but it would still be beneficial I think. Personally I would be happy to be on one of these playlists knowing that a single Bandcamp sale pays the same as thousands of streams.

not wanting to be a dick about it -- like, presumably at this stage it wouldn't be feasible, but it would be cool if there were a model where y'know, artists got paid better

small steps, i'm afraid.

but yes, i absolutely agree.

if they let people make and share mixes of Bandcamp works and you could buy the mixes, with money going to the respective artists featured... lovely

It's cool to be able to share music in the form of, like, a periodic round-up of recommended releases. But not so much if the idea is just to use Bandcamp as a streaming service, even if I'm as guilty as anyone of listening to certain things multiple times without buying. Although the artists do have that function to prevent streaming after a certain number of listens, which I assume would still work through this service? If it circumvents that, that would be shady.

Doesn't the limit on stream plays depend on the user being logged in? But that's the way it's set up so I don't think it's especially exploitative if there are easy links to buy tracks.

so for anyone curious, i made a playlist of some of my own music and in the tracklist it puts a nice "buy" link next to each song, which takes you directly to the song's page on bandcamp. here's what it looks like..

(sorry to link to my own, but i haven't seen any others yet)

Also how is this different from https://buymusic.club/?

The front end is nicer, admittedly (choosing your own colors is nice). I made one for a recent radio mix.

Damn:

Bandcamp is now blocked in China. The reason will be bureaucratic, routine. The effect will be subtle tragedy- a slow-burn drift to an insular music scene that has to rely on volunteer content smuggling and context translation. Skills this resilient scene knows all too well. 😭😭

— Krish Raghav (@krishraghav) February 17, 2021

the replies on that tweet are not encouraging, people are just wanting a way to have bandcamp be spotify

Not really into bndcmpr, the need to build up a library there has driven a fair amount of purchasing - trying to reach critical mass where my Bandcamp library has enough variety to replace other services as the default when I turn on my truck.

Bandcamp blocked in China, https://t.co/UPX1g0C4Q2

— joris gillet (@stereo) February 23, 2021

Gotta say, Bandcamp Fridays are starting to be a bummer. It's warping the whole release schedule...you're either part of a huge glut on first Fridays, or worried that people will only buy/check for music on those days. Also feels a little weird to jump the line and release something a few days before a BC Friday. Not to mention making artists feel like they are now on a schedule to put something out once a month.

I wish they would just reduce their revenue share overall for the next X number of months, it would really smooth things out. Someone tell Robert Bandcamp.

Anyone know if there's a way to make a playlist for my Bandcamp purchases a la Spotify? I have quite a decent collection and a lot of it isn't available on Spotify. I'd like to be able to put these into a playlist so I can have these playing as I work or on my phone, but it seems that's not really a thing Bandcamp offers, which seems like a real shame

playlists suck. Bandcamp is for album listening.

Bandcamp itself doesn't allow that but there is some kind of third-party app that does it. I don't remember the name right now.

xp, not if you've got lots of single track purchases

Try this:
https://bndcmpr.co/

xp

good point

Do a lot of people only listen to BC purchases on BC? It has never really occurred to me to use it as a platform like that (I always download and import to itunes)

I assume they use the bandcamp app to stream on their phones

ah right. Honestly apple's "music" app is so shitty I might end up doing that too soon enough

Yeah I download everything to my music drive for local play and if I stream just stream off the app when I'm not at home. Very very occasionally I'll stream via my desktop setup.

My hatred of iTunes is well documented. Also, I tend to move from device to device

thanks for the link Jordan!!

It's wild that I can be logged into Bandcamp on my phone, laptop and iPad and have different shopping carts for each one.

I don't use wishlists, I just add things to my shopping cart when I know I want to buy them and then wait to check out until I'm at my laptop.

Bandcamp I just want to give you money, please take it.

use the wishlist. it's great. it does what you want to do.

FINE

Yah, why would you not want to use it? Wishlist works great.

I guess the new player interface on iOS is cool but I am wary of further feature creep

now I'm using the wishlist feature and it's working great and I have a new problem

Huh.

Apparently Bandcamp got bought by is joining Epic Games (Fortnite)?

https://blog.bandcamp.com/2022/03/02/bandcamp-is-joining-epic/

Wondering what this means for the payment system.

Well I'm not seeing any NFT mentions so that's a good sign.

is this an acquisition or just a partnership? it's really vague about that and it's the part that matters most which makes me assume its the worse case

Yeah, it's the vagueness that unsettles me, plus the bit about "push(ing) development forward" on the payment system. Having seen how Fortnite does it's payment system, this could be an adjustment.

I was trying to figure that out too, it's very odd. I assume that it's a euphemism for an acquisition, from the "we're joining them" language.

And while over the years we’ve heard from other companies who wanted us to join them...

Not the other way around, or "wanted to work together", etc.

Best case scenario is Epic just wants to use Bandcamps model/software/payment system for selling games, and leaves Bandcamp the hell alone?

There's absolutely no way, if the payment system or software changes, that it doesn't go the other direction.

Epic's game store is huge, although Steam is still considerably larger. I think the monthly user numbers are something like 50 million, and they've dropped millions of dollars on time-limited giveaways of games just to lure people into their ecosystem.

I think the big play here is that Epic can use music as another wedge against Apple not allowing in-app purchases that aren't funneled through Apple's payment system or allowing apps that aren't through the App Store.

Yeah the whole Epic/Apple thing is what I’ve been thinking about here.

https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader
someone might find this useful, it's a way to download your entire collection
because the individual album method takes forEVAH

Ned to thread!

Fuck yes, hate buying a label discography and then needing to wait and press DOWNLOAD on 75 different items.

doesn't really seem like the epic acquisition changed anything, as far as i've seen

Yeah, I'm glad there's been no major enshittification so far.

Just wait

They're still letting me write for them, clearly a disaster wait hold on.

Deeply concerned about Bandcamp, Patreon and Mixcloud, thankfully all three are still ok, but this can't last forever.

Why Patreon?

Because it seems like any of these companies are liable to be bought out & ruined by a venture capitalist. They have made the right calls so far, on the whole.

patreon succeeds despite itself and its ownership imo

Only problem with Bandcamp I have had recently is really slow downloads every now and then, which is annoying when you’re trying to download 50 albums on a Bandcamp Friday.

Bandcamp unionized:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bandcamp-union-1234695308/

Nice!

Initial petition delivered, public campaign call on Monday:

https://bit.ly/bcu-update

Love BC
Use it all day
Just stop adding shit
Not going to end well

otm

adding what?

needless "functionality" and bloatware (guessing at what calstars meant here but that's my take)

Ned's link is to register for a Zoom webinar FYI

yeah IDGI

doh

it’s the link to a public meeting to rally support for the bandcamp employee union afaict

Yup!

I'm really surprised more bands don't just chuck up a whole bunch of soundboard recordings of their shows for a few bucks each. Seems an easy way to make some money without much extra effort.

Like this: https://bspliveseries.bandcamp.com/

Some bands don't like to have live recordings out there unless they're properly curated, mixed and so on. Plus, it might adversely affect sales should they decide to release a proper live album later.

I guess that’s so, but I would imagine the people who buy live albums tend to be completists anyway.

Update from Bandcamp United:

--

After an unnecessary hearing brought by our employer’s lawyers, the NLRB dismissed the case and has issued a date for our election. We’ll be voting by mail, and our ballots will be counted shortly after.
We’re calling on our supporters to stop sending emails to Ethan as we focus on casting our votes for our union.
If we see any more union busting in the coming weeks we’ll be sure to let our supporters know.
We’re grateful for the support that you have shown us in the Fediverse, and by signing our petition and emailing our leadership.
It made a big difference in proving to our employers that we have the backing of the Bandcamp community, and that we stand together in asking management to do the right thing.
Please share your messages of support on social media on why you think a union is good for Bandcamp (Please tag us so we can see them.)
To summarize:
We have an election date!
You can stop emailing Ethan (but thank you for your support in that campaign.)
Thank you for your continued support of our campaign.
Solidarity forever!

Epic sold Bandcamp?

it sounds like the writers for the bandcamp reviews/etc are either laid off or bailing, which sucks

yep, being discussed here

Thread for awesome stuff on Bandcamp that costs money but is still awesome

Damn, if they lose the editorial side, that's a huge loss and a bad sign.

Epic is doing layoffs with its remaining companies but is anyone saying they've been laid off from Bandcamp yet?

i think they just sold it off, rather than axe personnel

does anyone else have a bad feeling that bandcamp is just going to die by a thousand cuts and be left in the ether like myspace? i have a few albums i want to put out next year, and the thought of uploading them there just feels like dumping into a void to me. am i too pessimistic about this? i'd rather just make CDs and ship them out, but i also don't want to limit access or be awkward about it...

I wouldn't stop uploading to Bandcamp (all my stuff is on there) but I'd start looking at similar alternative sites as well.

Gotta love the new Bandcamp:

Subtotal: 2.00
Additional fan contribution: 3.00
Revenue share (15%): -0.75
Applied to your revenue share balance*: -3.94
Payment processor fee (PayPal): -0.31
Your share: $0.00 USD

How can we have a 'revenue share balance' if they take their cut right off the top anway? Bullshit

that is not a new bandcamp thing though, i see it in payments as early as 2015

i dont understand why, but for physical sales they dont take the revenue share cut on the actual transaction, they bill it against future digital sales

Maybe because they're not involved in fulfillment? Whereas with digital they're in charge of everything

No idea how big of a YouTuber this guy is (and how that would skew the numbers) but that’s a pretty decent alternative to streaming.

It’s been 6 months since I removed my music from all music streaming platforms

I’ve independently released 3 new albums direct to consumer since then

Here’s where we are today👇🏽

Bandcamp: $4,471
Even: $4,087.66
Website: $3,082
Total = $11,640.66

Equivalent to 3.4 m streams

— Curtiss King 🏁🛠 (@CurtissKing) May 23, 2024

Having to produce 66 albums a year is hard work, though.

Fuck, 6, not 66.