Keeping you up-to-date:
"music from Major Stryker" album submitted to Spotify by DistroKid.com at 3:02 PM on Fri, Jul 12.
The album became live at 3:42 PM today (Sun, July 14).
You can listen to the whole album here: https://play.spotify.com/album/5ywL7dTpec7SIw5TR3gPqf
I have heard nothing further about Google Play and Amazon.
Hey Google and Amazon, wonder why iTunes is on top? You'd better up your game!
Who'd ever thunk that an album could be submitted to iTunes and be on sale in two and a half hours?
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
DistroKid.com Part 6
The "music from Major Stryker" Album went live on iTunes in less than three hours. You can preview it here.
As for going directly with iTunes, I could have done that, but it would have been at the cost of time and expense of setting everything up -- UPC code, ISRC and other requirements.
I am very happy to see a one man operation like DistroKid.com go toe to toe with the corporation aggregators. It goes to prove the power one person has now with the connectivity of the internet.
Has anyone else tried DistroKid.com? I'd love to hear if you have -- and what your experience has been.
As for going directly with iTunes, I could have done that, but it would have been at the cost of time and expense of setting everything up -- UPC code, ISRC and other requirements.
I am very happy to see a one man operation like DistroKid.com go toe to toe with the corporation aggregators. It goes to prove the power one person has now with the connectivity of the internet.
Has anyone else tried DistroKid.com? I'd love to hear if you have -- and what your experience has been.
DistroKid.com Part 5
"In Hiding" is live on Spotify. It took almost exactly two days. Impressive enough.
I have not heard back from DistroKid.com, but I can only imagine how much mail he's getting.
Here's the Spotify link, if you want to check it out.
I uploaded 21 songs for the album "music from Major Stryker." We'll see if the timing is as good on an album as it is a single.
By the way, there seems to be a limit of 21 songs for albums submitted by DistroKid.com
I have not heard back from DistroKid.com, but I can only imagine how much mail he's getting.
Here's the Spotify link, if you want to check it out.
I uploaded 21 songs for the album "music from Major Stryker." We'll see if the timing is as good on an album as it is a single.
By the way, there seems to be a limit of 21 songs for albums submitted by DistroKid.com
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
DistroKid.com Part 4
I emailed Philip Kaplan, who is the founder and one employee of DistroKid.com. I asked how to go about uploading the other songs of "music from Duke Nukem 3D" so my trial uploaded song would be included in the album. I'll let you know what/when I hear back. I imagine Mr. Kaplan is very busy.
In the meantime, I am going to upload my updated recordings of the music from Major Stryker. For years I have been putting this sort of thing off as it's like living in the past -- and it takes me away from creating new things. But, I actually enjoyed reworking the Stryker songs. Almost as much as I enjoyed working on them twenty years ago.
The original songs could have no more than 9 note polyphony, which called for lots of editing and searching for overlapping notes. Before updating any of the songs, I decided to try to maintain the feel of the song, meaning I wouldn't add new notes, instrument parts, melodies/harmonies and such. But, I did add "verses" on some, and endings.
I'll let you know how this goes.
In the meantime, I am going to upload my updated recordings of the music from Major Stryker. For years I have been putting this sort of thing off as it's like living in the past -- and it takes me away from creating new things. But, I actually enjoyed reworking the Stryker songs. Almost as much as I enjoyed working on them twenty years ago.
The original songs could have no more than 9 note polyphony, which called for lots of editing and searching for overlapping notes. Before updating any of the songs, I decided to try to maintain the feel of the song, meaning I wouldn't add new notes, instrument parts, melodies/harmonies and such. But, I did add "verses" on some, and endings.
I'll let you know how this goes.
Monday, July 8, 2013
DistroKid.com Part 3
DistroKid didn't fib when it came to the iTunes claim. "In Hiding" became active on iTunes around 5:30 Eastern -- it was submitted around 3:15 Eastern.
This is impressive!
Now to find out if I can add this single to the "music from Duke Nukem 3D" album -- if that's possible I'll be even more impressed.
The final and most important test for most of us is how is the accounting handled -- how often, what method, etc.
I'll post more as I discover things.
This is impressive!
Now to find out if I can add this single to the "music from Duke Nukem 3D" album -- if that's possible I'll be even more impressed.
The final and most important test for most of us is how is the accounting handled -- how often, what method, etc.
I'll post more as I discover things.
DistroKid.com Part 2
Sorry for taking so long to continue this experience. I had to make up some album artwork. I decided for generic, using a photo of a Les Paul Recording model that I have written a good bit of game music on.
Anyway, I uploaded the album art and a wav file of "In Hiding," a song from Duke Nukem 3D (Episode 3, Level 1: Raw Meat). It wasn't long before I received two "Good News" automated emails from DistroKid advising that the artwork (format, size, etc.) and the audio (format, bitrate, etc) "is good." Both emails included a link to more details about further processing of the files. That page stands static, reflecting that both artwork and song are "processing."
It seems that this is going to take a while.
I decided to refresh the page after waiting 10 minutes or so, and it reflected that the artwork was "Good." For the album, it listed a UPC, with an IRSC for the song. Pretty cool!
I also received another email. There's a problem with the way the system handled the one song. The Album title, which I listed as "Music from Duke Nukem 3D" is listed as "In Hiding," the song name. Will I be able to put this song with the others when I upload them? We'll see.
The good news is that the "album" has already been submitted to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon.
There's an interesting paragraph about how long the stores take to make an album live:
Anyway, I uploaded the album art and a wav file of "In Hiding," a song from Duke Nukem 3D (Episode 3, Level 1: Raw Meat). It wasn't long before I received two "Good News" automated emails from DistroKid advising that the artwork (format, size, etc.) and the audio (format, bitrate, etc) "is good." Both emails included a link to more details about further processing of the files. That page stands static, reflecting that both artwork and song are "processing."
It seems that this is going to take a while.
I decided to refresh the page after waiting 10 minutes or so, and it reflected that the artwork was "Good." For the album, it listed a UPC, with an IRSC for the song. Pretty cool!
I also received another email. There's a problem with the way the system handled the one song. The Album title, which I listed as "Music from Duke Nukem 3D" is listed as "In Hiding," the song name. Will I be able to put this song with the others when I upload them? We'll see.
The good news is that the "album" has already been submitted to iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon.
There's an interesting paragraph about how long the stores take to make an album live:
- iTunes: About 1 day, sometimes within hours. A small percentage of albums go through manual review at Apple, which takes an additional 16 business days.
- Spotify: 1-3 days.
- Google Play: About 3 days.
- Amazon: 4-6 weeks (still beta testing)
Saturday, July 6, 2013
DistroKid.com
DistroKid.com allows unlimited uploading of your songs/compositions, and they will put them on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Spotify -- for an annual fee of $19.99. And you get 100% of your royalties. Of course they are paid through DistroKid.
I'm checking it out and will put my thoughts here as soon as I see how it all works.
DistroKid allows you to upload one free song to try it out.
If you get five referrals, you'll get a free unlimited upgrade. I'm trying that out with the links to their site to see if that works, too.
You don't have to pay or give credit card information when you register. Just your email address and desired password.
You can read about it via a couple of links on the DistroKid.com site.
The lack of particulars on the site makes me a bit suspicious, but we'll keep an open mind to see what gives.
************************
Here's what I'm seeing as I look through the site:
I'm checking it out and will put my thoughts here as soon as I see how it all works.
DistroKid allows you to upload one free song to try it out.
If you get five referrals, you'll get a free unlimited upgrade. I'm trying that out with the links to their site to see if that works, too.
You don't have to pay or give credit card information when you register. Just your email address and desired password.
You can read about it via a couple of links on the DistroKid.com site.
The lack of particulars on the site makes me a bit suspicious, but we'll keep an open mind to see what gives.
************************
Here's what I'm seeing as I look through the site:
- After registering, it goes to the "Upgrade for free" page that gives your referral URL and explains the 5 people register credits you with unlimited uploads. It doesn't say if that's forever or just for the first year.
- Links at the top of this page are + Upload, Upgrade, Albums, Bank and a symbol that signs you out of the site (learned that by clicking too quickly).
- I use long passwords. Don't know if that was a problem, but the site didn't recognize my password -- and I pasted it into the password fields when I registered. So I clicked "Forgot My Password" and it emailed me a link to reset the password. I copied and pasted the same password. We'll see if I get into the site again after signing out. But first, to continue while I am logged in now.
- There's also a link on the "Upgrade for free" page that says "Click here to upload music."
- It's linked to the same page as the + Upload link at the top of the page.
- Clicking on either of those links take you to the "Upload an album" page.
- On that page, "Stores" has already checked boxes for iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon.
- Album types are One song (a single) and Multiple songs (an album).
- Artist/band name.
- Album cover "Choose File" button. Specs are jpg extension, perfect square, at least 1000x1000, optimal is 2500x2500.
- Language dropdown.
- Primary genre. Secondary genre
- For the one free upload, there's a Track 1 section with Song title, Explicit lyrics No/Yes, and a "Choose File" button. File specs are WAV/FLAC/MP3/CDDA -- optimal is WAV.
- And finally, a "Just making sure..." section with check boxes for "There are no typos or errors in my band name, song titles, or other text," "I've selected the correct files for my song(s) and artwork," and "My music is original, I own the copyright and have the legal right to sell it in stores worldwide.
- The "Upgrade" link takes you to the same page where you clicked on "Free" to try the site out.
- The "Albums" link takes free registrants back to the "Upgrade for free" page.
- The "Bank" link takes you to "Your earnings" with lines for the four services selling your songs.
There are a lot of unanswered questions from what I've been able to see on the site thus far. I'll upload a song and see if that gets me more answers.
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