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My "people better start buying music" rant (RANT INSIDE) (pg. 12)
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| mfitterer1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
So your argument here seems to be that music is worthless. That doesn't hold water either. How then do you explain the exponential growth of the iTunes store and other online distributors? |
Far from worthless. But it does feel like people believe it has less value than other forms of entertainment. I believe the problem is the way people look at piracy as a whole, not just music. Music is just on the bottom of the food chain so it gets hit hardest.
| quote: | | Originally posted by DigiNut So now you're saying that a high price creates a perception of value and low price creates a perception of fluff? This, again, does not stand up to evidence - far more people are buying $2 tracks online today than there were buying $20 albums a few years ago. |
A better indicator would be the percent of people that purchase compared to pirating. More people are buying simply because there is a greater volume of people going after music. Internet era. I'd say 25% at most of people buy their music at this time. For industry I say it's closer to 50% but that's even more ridiculous if you think about it.
| quote: | | Originally posted by DigiNut And then there's the iPhone App Store's infamous race to the bottom, all of those crummy little 99 cent apps lowering the bar for serious developers. A lot of these apps really are crap in a truly objective sense, but people buy these, mainly because it's so cheap that it's below their "oh, what the hell, why not" threshold. Tracks are in the same price range and consumers appear to demonstrate roughly the same behaviour. |
I have first hand experience with ploys like this although mine was with Motorola which was the first company to be big on purchasable apps roughly 5-6 years ago. It is a purchase made out of convenience. Not need but convenience. Why do you think Beatport just made a portable client? That exact reason. People will sit there playing with their phones and if they see something they like they purchase it; especially since they usually bill to your cell instead of actually having to put in CC info. If you put together one click purchasing and impressionable minds it's game over.
| quote: | | Originally posted by DigiNut Your statement also ignores the fact that piracy is every bit as rampant with games as it is with music; the whole point, which you still seem to be ignoring, is that the good game distributors find ways to use this in their favour instead of using it as an excuse. |
The difference is you can go to any Fred Meyers, Wal Mart, Best Buy, or any other store that carries any electronics and buy a video/computer game. We both know that is not possible with edm music;)
| quote: | | Originally posted by DigiNut Your belief that people pirate because they don't have money is mistaken. These people who are downloading $2 tracks are doing it on a $1200 PC with a $40/month internet connection, and listening on their $400 iPods/iPhones which they upgrade religiously year after year - you really think they can't afford it? |
They are pirating because they don't need to spend their money on the product they are trying to pirate. It's quite easy to rationalize from a non industry perspective. They aren't going to use the tracks to play out so the quality hit is meaningless. Why even open a beatport account when you can pirate every track you want for free? That's their train of thought. In fact I doubt most consumers even know about beatport or other download portals.
| quote: | | Originally posted by DigiNut Your assertion that they aren't "stand up enough to be legit" may be correct, but it's ultimately irrelevant, as those people do not represent lost sales! If that is truly the way they think/behave, crippling their ability to obtain the music for free will only result in them not listening to your music, which is throwing the baby out with the bathwater - giving up the publicity and brand loyalty it creates simply to shut a few fans out of their dirty habits. |
They don't directly correlate to lost sales but their actions influence people that do correlate to lost sales. People are impressionable and still want to get the music they want even if they can't afford it or don't want to pay for it. Thus they heard about big Cron on the TA forums talking about how easy it is to pirate full unmixed tracks and they try it out for themselves. They are now hooked. Now even when they do have money to allocate towards buying some music they continue to pirate because "nobody will miss my sale". |
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| Kysora |
| quote: | Originally posted by mfitterer1
Did you fail to see that almost the entirety of the income was made with preorders???? I've already admitted piracy is good from a marketing perspective for newer producers. |
Fair enough
| quote: | | You're misquoting or misunderstanding me. I said musicians will be forced to cut down on work as they will have to pick up another job. It's one of those things you do full out all the time or you do ever so often kind of like when you dust the video game console out. |
Well I personally spend about 2 hours a day working on my music -- not nearly "full time". I too already admitted that people who depend on music to live are going to be negatively affected.
I'm just having a hard time accepting that people who are truly passionate about music are going to give it up because sales figures or market share isn't holding up like it once did, mostly because I can't imagine doing such a thing myself. Even being discouraged by it seems a bit odd.
| quote: | | You're taking the stance as a producer who has yet to be exposed; I'm speaking from the perspective of an experienced producer who has been there done that. I once held your viewpoint. |
The thing is, I don't have any expectations for my music. The only thing I'd want is for other people to enjoy it, but even if that doesn't happen I have too much fun just making songs to want to give it up without exposure. Hell, it's what I've been doing for the last 2 and a half years, 2-4 hours a day. I've put in a LOT of time, and I'm not the best, but I'm perfectly at peace just making music because what it boils down to is just a fun way to fill my free time. That doesn't mean I'm not serious about it, but I can be at peace without relying on sales to judge my own worth as a musician.
And as I said before, this is just how I feel, not how I think everyone ought to feel. If you disagree because experiences have made you feel otherwise, then I can't really say anything against that. |
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| Beatflux |
If you take out the money part of the equation, pirating is still better than trying to download something from beatport.
With pirating:
-There are no territory restrictions
-No need to worry about getting the wrong impression from a preview
-No "WAV Handling Fee"
-Higher quality "Previews"
-There are download counts for each song
-No clunky interface to deal with |
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| beniii |
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/
| quote: | Your tools are not your competitive advantage It’s a war out there. We’re all trying to get ahead.
There are too many of us looking for work and not enough clients or listeners to go around. We’ll do anything to get our head above water – even if it means pushing down (or not holding a hand out to) our colleagues.
Or, alternatively, we’re all on the same team.
There’s a boundless and ever-growing number of clients and listeners who want to enjoy our music. The biggest challenge is getting the music in front of them. By working together we can reach more ears. By working together we can help each other improve our skills. We can encourage each other to work harder, producing work that keeps getting better and better.
Which world do you live in? |
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| mfitterer1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
If you take out the money part of the equation, pirating is still better than trying to download something from beatport.
With pirating:
-There are no territory restrictions
-No need to worry about getting the wrong impression from a preview
-No "WAV Handling Fee"
-Higher quality "Previews"
-There are download counts for each song
-No clunky interface to deal with |
- Territory restrictions are the only time where I could see piracy being warranted.
- I actually used to pirate tracks to preview the full track before deciding if it was worth purchasing or not; then I found Trackitdown; you can move the sample to whatever part of the song you want to listen to. Seems to be higher quality than BP as well.
- As per my knowledge there are rarely if ever legit wavs available via pirating. On top of that you never know if someone just upconverted a 320 to wav.
- You seriously need a download count to see if you're interested in a track? That says a lot about what you play...
- Lol so you trade interface dislike for possible trojans and viruses? |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by mfitterer1
On top of that you never know if someone just upconverted a 320 to wav. |
Actually, you can: an MP3 typically has a very sharp cutoff of frequencies 20 kHz and above. This transfers over to WAV as well. |
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| Kysora |
| WAVs are pretty hard to come by through torrents, FLAC seems to be more popular |
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| Richard Butler |
Question;
I've just had my first track signed. I have no shame in saying I made it deliberately as commercial sounding as possible, aimed squarely at the average weekend clubber rather than hardened EDM fan.
:whip:
Why, if there is no money to be made is the label going to the trouble of getting it mastered, remixed, promoted, marketed and so on? why bother?
PS - I have my feet on the ground and no expectations. |
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| tehlord |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
Why, if there is no money to be made is the label going to the trouble of getting it mastered, remixed, promoted, marketed and so on? why bother?
PS - I have my feet on the ground and no expectations. |
Maybe for the same reason that thousands of people try to make music to get signed? That is, they believe that they can still make it. It's still a glamorous pursuit for a lot of people to be a DJ/Producer/label owner etc etc.
I don't actually know, just an idea.
I would be interested to see how it goes for you though. I've had offers of deals on two of my tracks but never pursued it. If there was money in it I would do though. |
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| Richard Butler |
| quote: | Originally posted by tehlord
I would be interested to see how it goes for you though. I've had offers of deals on two of my tracks but never pursued it. If there was money in it I would do though. |
It's the track you aren't so keen on although I did make a lot of improvements in the final version. May well die a silent death though!
I'm wondering if a lot of producers are feeling unloved as a result of the vast oversupply of new tracks, meaning very few stand out and make an impact.
Something surprises me over on the anjuna forum. Recently 2 guys put up some very original futuristic sounding demos and got very little feedback even though a lot of listens. I would have thought those that supposedly crave originality, might be drawn to the more original demos:crazy: |
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| tehlord |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
It's the track you aren't so keen on although I did make a lot of improvements in the final version. May well die a silent death though!
I'm wondering if a lot of producers are feeling unloved as a result of the vast oversupply of new tracks, meaning very few stand out and make an impact.
Something surprises me over on the anjuna forum. Recently 2 guys put up some very original futuristic sounding demos and got very little feedback even though a lot of listens. I would have thought those that supposedly crave originality, might be drawn to the more original demos:crazy: |
Well I wasn't keen on it for the reasons you pointed out. You made a track that wasn't you (and send me that vocal track you posted a few months ago ffs, it was awesome! ;)) and it just sounded like a million other tracks (although I didn't hear the final!)
There's a lot of e talked about genres and originality though. People get slated for not being original, and when they are the labels don't want to know because it's not 'of the moment'.
That's why I have no interested in getting signed unless it just happens to throw me some money. I would absolutely not steer a track a certain way to fit in with a labels idea of what it should be either. I don't have enough time to spend on what is a passion for me to scratch my head doing something I don't feel. |
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| Richard Butler |
| quote: | Originally posted by tehlord
it just sounded like a million other tracks (although I didn't hear the final!)
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The label guy said it was very original!!:whip:
I didn't make it with a scene in mind but just wanted to make something original and hopefully with wider appeal than classic trance.
The vocal track you liked of mine is ok but when I play it to clubber types they say it's too lame and not deep and funky.
I think I'm comming away from more complex chordal sequences and melodies in favour of just trying to focus make something sonically different. Afterall, every chord sequence has been more or less heard many times over. |
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