Distribution Service?

[awjoe]

I've finished another album, and I'd like to distribute it via a distribution service. For the last two albums I've used Distrokid, and made about a dollar overall. (Cue applause...) So it's obvious I do it for the fun rather than for the money. I'm curious about your experience and opinions about online distribution services in general and Distrokid in particular.

[Drew Stephenson]

Are you talking hard-copy or download only?

I'm currently using CD baby for our last band EP but their pricing model works better for albums. Worth a look for sure.
I note that SoundCloud have a comment about distribution to streaming services on their pro unlimited plan now. I've not checked it out yet but am intending to as my solo stuff doesn't tend to fit the album format so much.

[BigRedX]

I use CD Baby and Catapult for two different projects.

Neither has made a profit when you take the upload fee into consideration, despite having had music up there for almost 10 years now.

As part of the overall distribution strategy they are worthwhile especially since neither band is currently playing live, and now we get a small but steady income from Spotify and Apple Music streaming, but while we were gigging, the revenue generated was less than 5% of all sales.

[awjoe]

Well yeah, if it's money you want, then gigging's way way better than the online floggeroo. On Friday night I watched a three-man British band called The Trials of Cato playing in a kind of club way out here on the left coast of Canada. (They described themselves as 'folk' and they are, but intelligently and inventively so. Relatively unknown on this side of the planet, but an awesome talent that I heartily recommend.) They managed to fill a 250-seat venue and got a take of the gate, but they really worked the signed CD sales during the intermission and at the end. *That* is how to make money. And interestingly, they don't even sell CDs online, only mp3s.

In the meantime, I just want to get my stuff out there online, as sensibly as possible. I've checked reviews of Distrokid and some people really pan them along the lines of 'They were good when they started but they've gone to the devil recently - don't trust them' sort of thing. Of course, I know better than to believe anonymous reviews online, so I thought I'd ask here. ... oh hang on... you're online and relatively anonymous too... Never mind. It's all about *degrees* of trust, right?

[connorhawke]

I've mainly used CDBaby. They're quick to get music to stores (usually a few days from submission) but somewhat more costly than competitors - e.g. $20 just for an album barcode whereas many other distributors provide this for free.

I tried Distrokid once, which seems more cost-effective if you want to distribute music constantly although there is a fee that pushes it above CDBaby's cost if you want to keep the music on stores after your subscription ends.

amuse is free but very slow - several weeks to get submission to stores, and long wait times for customer service. I'm trying their Pro service which should be slightly faster and I'll see how it fares.

ONErpm and RouteNote are other free options I've tried for my collab tracks as they offer automated split earnings.

Each service has their own drawbacks which may or may not affect you / your group so it's worth doing some individualized research and perhaps test-trialing to see what works best for what type of work. There's also a great summary article which covers a lot of the pros and cons of common distributors: https://aristake.com/post/cd-baby-tunec ... imbalam-or

Hope this helps.

[CS70]

So far I’ve seen only a parameter which means something: you either you pay the one-off processing fee but give them a cut for every sale, or pay every year a publishing fee but they take no cut. If you estimate lots of sales, the latter is best, if not the former is.

I have good experience with cd baby service and interface but I’m pretty sure it can be said for others.

The one above is imho the most meaningful difference between all these services.

[Drew Stephenson]

I did look at SoundCloud Pro as it was on offer recently but you need to be hitting a certain level of plays to get on their Premiere service - and I was nowhere close!

[MOF]

You might consider your own YouTube channel for monetising and cross promotion. Also some promotion through Facebook and Instagram on a regular basis.

[timoc]

This guy made a neat, massive comparison chart. It might be a year old or so:

https://aristake.com/posts/images/distro-chart-6-19.jpg

[Stickman0_3]

I use Ditto for distribution, I do everything myself and then upload MP3's and artwork to Ditto, then they distribute it to a number different sites.

[CS70]

I've finished another album, and I'd like to distribute it via a distribution service. For the last two albums I've used Distrokid, and made about a dollar overall. (Cue applause...) So it's obvious I do it for the fun rather than for the money. I'm curious about your experience and opinions about online distribution services in general and Distrokid in particular.

You made a dollar, and you're actually better off than a lot of signed artists!

[awjoe]

I'm up to $6 now, mostly through Amazon. I'm almost impressed. I'd like to know how many (units?) have to be sold to generate six bucks for the artist. When I reach the price of a bottle of wine, there WILL be a party.

[Stickman0_3]

lots of streaming!

[CS70]

I'm up to $6 now, mostly through Amazon. I'm almost impressed. I'd like to know how many (units?) have to be sold to generate six bucks for the artist. When I reach the price of a bottle of wine, there WILL be a party.

Much less than it would take were you associated with a label

[hasser964]

I've used Distrokid, Ditto, Landr & Soundcloud repost network.

For the money I think I'd say that Ditto is my favourite in terms of ease of use, how fast they were & the analytics they provide. Also they have a team that collects your other royalties that aren't from streaming (radio, shop etc).

Repost network is also pretty good, but they take 15% cut of your streaming royalties. They also offer some cool asf artwork options when you upload to Soundcloud.

Distrokid was expensive when releasing with multiple accounts & they charge extra for stuff like shazam which i personally think should be included in the price. The customer service was great and I never had an issue with them though.

Landr was free and is a great service for distribution. The mastering was also pretty interesting tbh, but it isn't as good as a proper mastering engineer.

You're gonna get most of the same with music distribution companies, I guess it's what works best for you. Personally I use Ditto & love it, but have heard other people not have a good time, same with Distrokid.

Whichever you choose, they're gonna be wildly similar in what they can offer.

There's a list here that goes through the pros & cons of each in a nice table format if you needed more info:

https://www.whippedcreamsounds.com/best ... tion-2020/

Hope this helps!

[Stickman0_3]

May I just point out that distribution is NOT promotion. Distribution just puts your product out there, on the shelf. I also do all promotion myself as well as I am studio based and do not gig.

[Drew Stephenson]

Repost network is also pretty good, but they take 15% cut of your streaming royalties. They also offer some cool asf artwork options when you upload to Soundcloud.

Do Repost have a minimum qualifying criteria? I looked at Soundcloud Pro for distribution but it was only after signing up that I discovered about the minimum monthly plays required to qualify for the distribution part of the package. Naturally I cancelled that but I see that they've now taken over Repost, I've asked the question via their support page but haven't received an answer.
Cheers

[Pod Pod]

CD Baby customer service is the WORST!

I've been emailing and calling them to correct a mistake THEY made on the release of my album for last 6 months!! CD Baby have attached my music to another artist with a similar name and have NOT bothered to correct this mistake. They look into and tell you they'll correct the mistake as soon as possible and say expect it to take 4-6weeks. So you wait and nothing happens, then you repeat the whole process of contacting them again.

[Stickman0_3]

Hi Pod Pod

Are you in the PRS? Did you registered your tracks with the PRS BEFORE releasing them? If yes, then you would have been assigned a CAE number and all your tracks would be registered to that number. This happened to me once, in the end, I figured that if all my tracks are registered in my name and PRS number on the PRS website, then I don't need to do anything?

Maybe someone correct me if I'm wrong on this?

[CS70]

CD Baby customer service is the WORST!

I've been emailing and calling them to correct a mistake THEY made on the release of my album for last 6 months!! CD Baby have attached my music to another artist with a similar name and have NOT bothered to correct this mistake. They look into and tell you they'll correct the mistake as soon as possible and say expect it to take 4-6weeks. So you wait and nothing happens, then you repeat the whole process of contacting them again.

Is that on Spotify? Or? Usually these errors have nothing to do with the aggregator, but they depend on the service. Remember that it is an industrialized process. Only in the last couple years Spotify at al. have implemented an "artist id" and that way you can make sure your tracks will end up in the right place. The aggregator (CDBaby) will tell the streaming service when asked to, but the actual correction time will depend on the service. And service have been very slow to do much which requires manual handling.

CDBaby support has been much slower lately, but I have received replies, only took some ten days instead of the day after.

[hasser964]

Repost network is also pretty good, but they take 15% cut of your streaming royalties. They also offer some cool asf artwork options when you upload to Soundcloud.

Do Repost have a minimum qualifying criteria? I looked at Soundcloud Pro for distribution but it was only after signing up that I discovered about the minimum monthly plays required to qualify for the distribution part of the package. Naturally I cancelled that but I see that they've now taken over Repost, I've asked the question via their support page but haven't received an answer.
Cheers

No there's no minimum anymore. You just have to purchase Soundcloud Pro, which is £7.50/month for me.

Personally I think it's worth it for everything you get with it & it's not too much.month.

[Drew Stephenson]

Thanks for the update.

[PrinceFreddie]

Hey everyone! I’m Prince Freddie and I’m here on the site because I started the book “Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio” by Mike Senior. I’m a Music Producer from Pennsylvania and I am attending the LA Film School for my Associates of Science in Music Production. I’m here to learn and to have fun doing what I love! As for the topic I’m recently researched a few distributors but I’m leaning toward distrokid.

[Guest]

created by the people internally that worked for Tunecore, but wanted more power - distrokid.

I wish I could do physical mediums but they are too expensive,.
People stand behind and support physical world more than digital.
Might consider doing a limited pressing of a small number of real and digital.

I've used Tunecore, Catapult Distribution, Rebeat, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Acidplanet, Pure Volume, Level Music, Myspace Music, burned CDs,.

To get my music on Beatport would be cool but I'm not a well known or established person in the industry and they require that being a label to do that not a person. I'm a person.

I've never used CD Baby as suggested. If you are wiling to pay the upfront cost, little known Rebeat can be very cool, and legitimate. You will get paid by them. They do work for you to make sure no one steals your music. I got paid by Tunecore, Catapult, and Rebeat but never bandcamp. I've used Bandcamp for years and have never received a penny.

I'll go back to Rebeat once I get my money inline and all my stuff in order.

[blakedirksen]

I have used distrokid for the last several years and really like it. I like the simplicity of the payment model and website. $20 bucks a year is nothing and the flat fee is easy to manage. For the cost of a round of beer my band gets to have our music on nearly every service in the world. It is absolutely amazing when you think about it!

Real money via streaming is TOUGH and it isn't the distributors job to get you more streams. For example, Bob Mould is one of my favorite artists and my favorite track from his LP from a few months ago has 50k streams on Spotify for a total of $172 in royalties, before paying agents, producers, labels, studios, artists, etc.

I don't say this to discourage you, just don't set high financial expectations based on simply dropping tracks on Spotify or Apple Music.

Keep with it and keep posting. I'd like to hear your stuff so shoot me a message with the link.