Official Discussion Thread (Ghost Edit)

[Acsii]

The beat, bro! The beat is mine, but the a cappella came from the song Rude by MAGIC

Edit: I wish I can sing like that

ah gotcha

[Acsii]

So my new album is out :3 Atanos it's on my band camp

[Ricky Denzel]

MoonSunDark sounds good bro.

[Acsii]

MoonSunDark sounds good bro.

cheers mate

[Facade]

MoonSunDark sounds good bro.

this

pretty damn sweet

[Bronies Are Cool]

im actually kind of excited to work on a Christmas music something this year. Either a single release or ep.
Might even Collab with synthis. Which means it can't possibly be crap

[Bronies Are Cool]

check this out. about to release it finally. I've been working on it since the summer. https://noahlkriska.bandcamp.com/album/wonders

[Acsii]

check this out. about to release it finally. I've been working on it since the summer. https://noahlkriska.bandcamp.com/album/wonders

I swear you already released this,but obviously you didnt

[Ricky Denzel]

I had no clue he had a bandcamp untill now.

[Acsii]

I had no clue he had a bandcamp untill now.

haha nice one :P

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I could never do albums tbh. I work too sporadically :T

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I'm kinda similar, I try a bunch of different things till something works and then work on whatever works forever. I also make a bunch of loops and drum sounds which eats up a lot of time

[Fl Brony]

I want to make an album but I really don't think my music is worth paying for

[Fl Brony]

Holy shit, jokeblue with the deep thought and inspirational message

[Fl Brony]

Iz srry cnt hlp drughdryhdtrhdrthdtrtrdhrt

[Stuntddude]

I probably will end up doing so though, for maybe just like a dollar per track or something cheap.

$1 per track is actually quite a lot to ask. A dollar for a single is to be expected, but a ten-track album typically won't go for more than $7.

But seriously, music's been devaluated so much.

Welcome to capitalism. More people are making music than ever before, which means fewer people can profit from it. Aren't unregulated market dynamics just great?

On the other hand, look on the bright side - while music has become cheaper than it used to be, each individual person is buying a lot more on average, a smaller percentage is being taken by labels now than before, and digital downloads mean that physical distribution no longer takes up a large chunk of that price, while even physical copies benefit from ever-plummeting CD production costs. So, all things considered, musicians are actually still making a comparable amount of money to what they did before even though prices have dropped and sales are being spread thin among a larger pool of producers.

Even my band without my opinion on the matter has set the bandcamp price of our ep to free. A 6 track Ep for free. I mean yeah you can still pay for it if you want, but who will?

Surprisingly more people than you'd expect. When I put my album up on bandcamp for free, roughly 1/3 of the people who downloaded it chose to pay money for it anyway, at an average of of ~3.70 USD per person. And if bandcamp's statistics are to be believed, customers on bandcamp pay an average of 50% more than the minimum price for non-free albums anyway.

But come on, let's not kid ourselves. Despite what we say we still want to in the least be heard or recognized for the work we've done in someway. Despite the fact that we/I may write something for fun or as an emotional release or something, it's still, really, really nice to be recognized for what you've done.

But the issue here is that you're equating $$$ with appreciation, which is not really a fair assumption. Many musicians genuinely are happy just to know people are listening to their music, and are willing to give it out for free as a gift to that end. Some people even refuse to take donations toward their music. They're not "kidding themselves" as you seem to believe, they just don't think of music as a career or as an avenue for profit.



Should you put your music up for a price? Absolutely, if you want to! Price it at however much you think it's worth, whether that's 10 cents or 100 dollars. You control your own business model and the great thing about self-publishing is that those decisions are nobody's to make but your own. But don't try to make others do the same if they don't want to. And certainly don't blame the people who are putting theirs up for free if your own isn't commercially successful.

[Captain Ironhelm]

*ramble engaged*

Should you put your music up for a price? Absolutely, if you want to! Price it at however much you think it's worth, whether that's 10 cents or 100 dollars. You control your own business model and the great thing about self-publishing is that those decisions are nobody's to make but your own. But don't try to make others do the same if they don't want to. And certainly don't blame the people who are putting theirs up for free if your own isn't commercially successful.

I'd recommend pricing it to however much the customer thinks it's worth. Simple A/B testing is a great way to find out what your customer base is willing to pay. This would be done with something simple like charging $12 on an album release and $5 on the next, testing to see how well a discount sale goes, etc. (If traffic volume is high enough, you can even profit off of free releases through ad revenue with places like youtube, adsense, adfly, etc.!)

But seriously, music's been devaluated so much.

It's important not to value yourself according to how others value themselves. I know a web designer that charges $100 for a site, and another designer that charges $5000. Each do quite well, but they both figured out what worked best for themselves.

A million schmo's give their music away for free thinking that's all the marketing it'll take to make them "famous". Ok, great for them whatever they can keep their day jobs.
That doesn't mean you can't cut your own path through the clutter, build and connect with your audience and build your own value. A friend of mine in 3 years was able to build his audience to the point where his latest album made over 20k USD in sales.
You can't trust solely on talent taking you to success in this day and age. Maybe you could just send a tape to a record company 50 years ago or some other over-used strategy that worked once and that's all it'd take, but it's a different world now. You have to think of it like a business person, a freelancer, an entrepreneur. Somebody wants to make money off of something, well then act like it and build the business.

*vanishes like Batman*

[Stuntddude]

I'd recommend pricing it to however much the customer thinks it's worth. Simple A/B testing is a great way to find out what your customer base is willing to pay.

If your goal is to make money most efficiently, then I'd say this is great advice. I'm speaking more from the PoV of assigning value to your own music by assigning a price tag to it, since it seemed to me that was the rationale being given originally. I think what I'm saying lines up with your next point about not valuing yourself according to how others value you.

[Captain Ironhelm]

Understood, and I agree. Seems I misunderstood the point by a bit again.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I'm always second guessing the quality of my music tbh, I do things and I like them but I'm never really sure if it's as good as I think it is

[Freewave]

I want to make an album but I really don't think my music is worth paying for

this so much this.

You can do pay what you want if you're really ambivalent or a low price if you want to guarantee a small dedicated income ($3 to $5 is a good price for a non label album). One of my albums i did as a pay what you want and I've made $100-125 on it (not much but better than nothing). I know Cherax Destructor has made about $700 altogether when i talked to him in summer. I know when Jeff Burgess put his highly hyped Autumn Nights at $10 (cause thats how much he thought it should go for) it backfired and he only sold about 100 copies which is sad as it was incredibly awesome.

[Ricky Denzel]

I do not know what is going on, but I'm just gonna... yeah....




I love furries

[ExoBassTix]

https://soundcloud.com/warmonger-o/is-birth-on-day-happy-birth-happy-cake

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BASED PYRELIGHT

[Ricky Denzel]

Wait. It's her birthday? congrates, babe

EDIT: Don't know why, but it was funny

[MrBronyPlan]

New pocket watch came in today :D
I haven't a clue how many times to wind it though so I winded it several times and will see if it lasts 24 hours