TuneCorner

Guess How Much Money You Made. Seriously, You Need To Guess.

By George Howard and Jeff Price

(Follow George Howard on Twitter  /  Follow TuneCore on Twitter)

In order for a business of any kind to succeed you must have metrics.  You must, at minimum, be able to calculate both how much the business is spending and how much the business is making.  The music industry today, in many respects, requires and rewards the artist who views herself as a business-owner/operator.  Artists can (and we’d argue, should) be their own label, songwriter, and publisher.  As such, artists can develop multiple revenue streams for their business.  Downloads of the artist’s records generate income; usages of the song/master in film/TV generate income.  Both of these streams of income are fairly easy to quantify.  A download of a song generates roughly $.70, and income from usages in a movie/ad, while negotiated, are clear and precise. 

Gadgets We Like: Roqbot App Brings Back The Jukebox

It’s hard to resist the charm of the jukebox.  And now, thanks to the Roqbot application for Android, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, you can access a jukebox from your phone and choose the tunes that play in the background of bars, restaurants, and other participating venues.

To find songs to add to the queue you can either sort through the app’s music library of 5 million licensed songs, or sync up your iPod library, Last.fm profile, or favorite Facebook bands.  The venue itself has the option to allow customers to choose from the full library, or from a group of songs pre-selected by the venue to fit the establishment’s vibe.

Understanding The Cloud: How You Can Benefit From Streaming Music

By George Howard (follow on Twiter) 

 Overview: Cloud-based streaming is here and growing

The first thing you must be clear on is that, inexorably, we are moving towards an all-streaming delivery of music. Should you be interested, you can read more details about the coming streams in an article I wrote some time ago entitled, “The Stream that Snuck Up on You.”  The premise is that in an era of (near) constant connectivity, there is little-to-no reason to actually have the file on your device.

Soon, about the only place where (for better or worse) you won’t be online is on a subway.  Combine this constant connectivity with a virtually unlimited selection of music that is available for instant streaming, and you truly must ask, “What is the distinction between ‘ownership’ of a file and streaming?” 

Gadgets We Like: djay for iPad

My dream of becoming a DJ…can now be a reality! With Algoriddim’s djay app for the iPad, you can discover your inner DJ or hone the skills you’ve already got. Load one song from your iPod library to each turntable deck showing on your screen. Then get to work mixing the two together – match their BPMs, scratch the tracks, and change EQ settings. If you like one particular string of chords you can set it to repeat. All done?  You can export the resulting track to a Mac or PC through iTunes file sharing.

Gadgets We Like: SoundHound Search Application for iPhones, iPads, and iPods

Check out this week's gadget, picked by Bryan, our very techsavvy TuneCore Artist Support Rep…

Take a peek at this rocking app I just downloaded for my iPhone!  SoundHound is most excellent and dare I say, a better search tool than Shazam because of its awesome interface!  I use this app a ton when I'm out cruising the local bar scene and I hear an awesome tune but can’t remember the artist’s name.  I hold the phone up in the air just like I would hold a lighter while “Free Bird” is playing during a concert, and the app does the rest.

Gadgets We Like: TASCAM Portastudio for iPad

By Jeff Price

Way back in the old days - the 80's - when I would walk barefoot in the snow uphill, I bought myself a TASCAM four track recorder.  I loved it.  I would pop in a cassette and record four tracks of me not playing anything very well.  I recorded my first song and played it over and over trying to find ways to improve it (sadly, nothing would have helped).

Social Tips for promoting your tour

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Todd Hansen is Co-Founder of Better Than The Van, music's home for hospitality.

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It’s time for tour! Just getting to this point takes a ton of work and doesn’t happen for every band on the planet. You’ve got some shows booked (hopefully) and maybe more on the way. You’ve got your merch ready to sling and of course your band is crazy-tight and ready to kill it. Now it’s time to gas up the van, head out and let the cards fall where they may. Right? Wrong. You’ve got more work to do.

Making Time with iTunes!

As of last week, the amount of time for most TuneCore Artist’s albums, singles, EPs or ringtones to go live on iTunes was less than 24 hours. Even more amazing, on Thursday of last week, we had one TuneCore Artist's release go live on iTunes within 28 minutes of completing checkout.  These incredibly fast live times are happening for the majority of TuneCore Artist releases, our goal is to have them happen for ALL TuneCore Artists releases (and we are working on it!).

In addition to faster live times on iTunes, the new and improved TuneCore delivery system now has TuneCore Artist's releases delivered to iTunes within five minutes twelve seconds of completing checkout – the old TuneCore delivery time had the snail like pace of three to five hours.

TuneCore not only has the highest payout rates and is the most reliable and trusted music distributor in the world for artists, it is also one of the fastest  ways in the world to have music distributed.

My experience with Jango Airplay by Taylor Simons

Taylor Simons is the director of Customer Support and Solutions.

I first tried out Jango Airplay back in April when I first heard about the service. I used my colleague’s group OMG!Michelle to create a free account since I am not in a band myself. The upload process was super easy and I didn’t have to make any changes or conversions to the MP3 I uploaded. I first purchased 1,000 guaranteed plays and found it pretty thrilling to watch the play count rise over the first few days.

The songs I uploaded were quickly being played side by side with songs from OutKast, Beyonce, Kid Sister, Usher, Snoop Dogg and tons of other legendary artists. I then started to receive comments on my band page like, “Do you have a my space??? I wanna collab on a track wit you if possible. I like your style :] hit me up!!!” from a user in Lompoc, CA. And “Stupid Song….” From Ralnesha in Roanoke, VA.

Hey, it's all feedback, I just may not be booking a gig for OMG!Michelle in Roanoke anytime soon!

I bought another 1,000 the second my first thousand ran dry. So with a total of 2,000 purchased plays, to date I have received 40 comments and acquired 46 fans with an extra 297 free plays coming from general rotation. What I found really cool was that the fans were coming from OMG!Michelle’s hometown, NYC, Cali, Europe, South Africa and more!

What’s even better is that Jango gives me a way to e-mail each fan directly from my Jango Airplay account. Jango also does a great job of providing you with reports by gender/age and which other artists your fans listen to. (See below).

All of this is really helpful because you can request that your song be played on stations that those relevant artists are played on as well. You can also target fans by geography, which may be a great tool for getting some extra promotion around your tour dates.

In addition, Jango provides you with an artist page that allows you to upload pictures and a bio and permits listeners to leave you comments. There are many other cool features with Jango such as targeting fans by gender, age and more. Take advantage of our great relationship with Jango by purchasing guaranteed airplay at heavily discounted rates.

My one complaint about Jango Airplay is that I personally find it to be a bit addictive and they have yet to include a “Got an Airplay addiction? Call this toll free number” on their site; so purchase plays at your own risk…

iTunes Going DRM Free: What does it mean for you?

Jake Smith is a TuneCore customer support representative and editor of the TuneCore Newsletter

After 6 years, iTunes has announced that they will begin selling their entire catalog without DRM protection.  This raises a number of questions, and it is important to start discussing now what these changes could mean for all of us in the music industry.

DRM, or "Digital Rights Management", is proprietary code encoded in certain types of files to control where and how they can be used.  If you've ever purchased a song on iTunes before and tried to play it on a different computer, a message will come up saying that the computer is not authorized to play the file.  iTunes currently allows 5 computers to be authorized for any one iTunes account.  DRM protection reaches much further than just iTunes and digital music.  Movies, computer software, and video games often incorporate some types of digital rights protection.  For example, DRM stops (or attempts to stop) you from ripping DVD movies to you computer or by requiring you to enter a serial number before using a new program you've installed.

From the stand point of the music consumer, there is really no downside to iTunes removing DRM protection.  In addition to being able to move music more freely from computer to computer, music purchased in the iTunes store will no longer be limited to the iTunes library or iPods.  Files will be compatible with Windows Media Player, non-Apple based MP3 players, video game consoles and more.  From the label/artist stand point, the loss of DRM may seem good or bad depending on your personal philosophy.  Does it help your career in the long run by making it easier for fans to share, or is it simply less money coming to you for your hard work?

Realizing that the decision to drop DRM protection would be a controversial decision, and in an effort keep ahead of the rapidly growing Amazon store, iTunes announced they would sweeten the deal for labels by finally allowing labels to set price tiers for individual tracks.  We are waiting on iTunes to give us more specific information about this and we will make the details known as we receive them.

If you're looking for a more in depth look at these changes, I'd recommend this article from the staff of Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/article/138000/2009/01/drm_faq.html).  Some highlights include:

• iTunes DRM free files vs. Amazon MP3, which has always been DRM Free
• What happens to music purchased before the DRM change?
• Will the change affect TV Shows and Movies?

Reports say that this change will be taking place by June.  What do you think about this?  Was the DRM drop inevitable or is iTunes biting the hand that feeds it?  Let us know your thoughts.