Online Music Distribution Experience

Here I want to share some of my first experiences with online music distribution services. So far I have uploaded through TuneCore and WaTunes. For checking if my music is online available, I did a search for "reinhold behringer" on each of the sites.

As a summary, from TuneCore the music seems to be fastest uploaded to Amazon. iTunes and AmieStreet seem to be the slowest - they did not yet have any music available after 6 days.

Here is my experience with TuneCore:

Date	Service	Issues and Comments
Day 1	Uploading Music to TuneCore	Files had to be in wave or MP3 > 300 bps - I uploaded wave.
8 hours	First of the uploaded music is on Amazon.	Because TuneCore does have no classical category, I put my music in "Electronic" and "Inspirational". That translated on Amazon to "Dance/Electronic" and "Christian/Gospel".
Day 3	Music is on Lala.	Listen only possible in US. Provides number of listens. Fortunately category stays as "Electronic" instead of something weird.
Day 5	Music is on ShockHound.	Uses "Piggy Bank" for payment. Puts my music into genre: Spiritual
Day 6	Music is on Rhapsody.	Cateogory: Electronica/Dance. Artwork is only partially there (is missing for Tristan, is not showing in enlarged icon view). Listen is only available in US.
Day 6	Music is on Napster (UK, cannot access US).	But need to be a member of Napster to see the tracks.
	Emusic:	No way of checking, because even the search requires a registration.

And here is my experience with WaTunes:

Date	Service	Issues and Comments
Day 1	Creating Album on WaTunes.	In its current form the GUI and upload interface are not very intuitive to use. One has only one attempt in setting up the album, later changes are through (the very responsive) tech support.
Day 2	Uploaded music content to WaTunes.	Track files are packed into one zip file which is then uploaded via web interface. I wondered how the track order in the album would be determined. WaTunes responded that one adds a number as the first characters in the track file name. Also when creating the album one should add the track titles in the form - I had forgotten to do that.
Day 3	Music is "In Review".

In summary:

TuneCore has a professional service, at a price of $9.99 per single. The uploaded music was fast online on Amazon. But the limited genre classifications that are offered by TuneCore, are a real bummmer. After uploading 5 singles, I have halted all further uploads indefinitely, until they fix their genre classification and add at least a "classical" category.

WaTunes offers free upload to iTunes, eMusic, and ShockHound. Their service is good value, but it appears not yet mature and really functioning. But they do have a large variety of genres. However, my music uploaded through them is not yet online anywhere, I got told it would be online by mid August. There are several issues with the web interface, which currently only allows a very limited management by the artist. One has to wait until the "New Experience" is implemented on their site, and until the VIP service is activated (expected by mid July, with large number of additional stores).

A note regarding iTunes: they really appear not to be artist-friendly at all. They are not interested in independent artist signing on, but recommend that they go through one of those intermediaries like TuneCore or WaTunes. And even through those, they take a long time until the music appears there in their store.

Amazon appears to be the winner - with the most rapid online publication of the music and with a well established and accessible brand. I have not yet found out if artists can sign on directly to Amazon...

Music on Rhapsody

There are now a few of my recordings on Rhapsody: "Elegia", "Tristan...", and "Arie des Tenor". Unfortunately they are in the wrong category, but since TuneCore still has no classical category, there is nothing I can do about it.

The files also do not have any artwork: the graphics which I also uploaded on TuneCore do not appear on Rhapsody...

I think I will create a separate post here, with a table about all these little quirks.

WaTunes vs. TuneCore

While searching for an alternative to TuneCore which would be able to add the "Classical" tag to my music, I came across watunes. Not quite clear how the costing is: on one blog entry a monthly fee of $10 is mentioned, but when I signed on, there was no mention of a fee at all - indeed, their service is FREE!

And WaTunes has the "classical" category - which is absolutely essential for my music. Also, they do have a great array of sub-cagetories, something that TuneCore does not have at all. They require only MP3 files (320 bps), no wave files. And they need the artwork only at resolution 600x600, not like TuneCore which requires 1600x1600.

So I think I will give it a try and upload there. Pity for you, TuneCore, that you guys were not able to fix the genre classification... but if I would publish all my music under those incorrect tags, nobody would ever find the files.

Some of the WaTunes interface is not yet stable. I tried to edit my account information, and while it had accepted everything when I signed on, it complained that my username was too long when I wanted to edit my account info. Also the system had forgotten that I wanted to sign on as artist, not as listener... and after I had created an yet empty album, I should have written down the UPC code - because that one is needed when preparing uploading the content. In order to see the UPC code, one has to go back to the main page and go to "My Discography".

It seems that the web developers for those online music distribution sites are a bit overworked, not being able to address simple issues such as classical music tagging or managing correctly the database access, but I guess this will change in the future.

WaTunes: cover art costs $20. TuneCore: cover art is free.

Stores for WaTunes (free): iTunes (no country specified), eMusic, ShockHound. For an additional $29.99 VIP charge per year, more stores are offered: Napster, Amazon, AmieStreet, zune, masterbeat, beatsdigital, and others, including mobile phone stores.

Stores for TuneCore: iTunes, Napster, Amazon, eMusic, ShockHound, AmieStreet, rhapsody, IMVU, Lala.

TuneCore Customer Support

Yesterday I had posted my questions to the TuneCore customer support, and today came my reply, answering all my questions. Unfortunately, there will be no Classical category for a while: the meta-tagging for classical is more complicated, as one needs also other sub-tags (arranger etc.). Well, this is annoying - I cannot have my music categorised as Dance/DJ... so I will wait for a while before posting more music.

All files now online on Amazon

All of the recently uploaded files are now available on Amazon, less then 24 hours after submitting them through TuneCore. This is great!

But as noted in an earlier post: all the categories are wrong... because Tunecore does not have a classical category.

It seems that the discussion forum on Tunecore is a bit sleepy... not much activity, there seems to be one post per day. And nobody has yet answered my posts, in which I pointed out this problem and a few other minor issues...

Finalized latest TuneCore uploads

I just finished getting those latest four music recordings up on TuneCore. For the Elegia and the Tristan I selected graphics from the TuneCore cover art collection. For the Smetana Moldau, I dug a picture of a twirling river (is actually not the Vltava/Moldau, but the river Sligachan on the Isle of Skye in Scotland - psst, don't tell anyone). But that was the only twirling river water photo that I had in my possession. I did not want to take someone else's photo from the real Vltava - I could have asked on Flickr, but there was no time. Maybe with the next release - there are quite a few nice pictures from the actual river there. And finally for the Strauss aria, I dug out some of the old "Virtual Opera House" graphics. Need to do something else with them at some point, but for now this is sufficient.

I am curious how fast it takes until these are on Amazon.

More uploads onto TuneCore

This quick success of the TuneCore process has encouraged me to upload more music: I am right now uploading:

• My own "Elegia" from 2002
• The Richard Strauss Aria "Arie des Tenor" with singer George Everett
• My old classic "Smetana: Vltava/Moldau"
• My very first published composition "Tristan and Siegfried meet Isolde".

This should make a nice initial repertoire.

My First TuneCore Upload complete!

For the very first time I uploaded now a piece to TuneCore. I choose my most recent MIDI rendition: "The Snow is Dancing" by Claude Debussy, which I had created in February 2009 after the "heavy" snowfall here in UK.

For iTunes, TuneCore required the uncompressed wave file. This should result in a very good sound quality, better than in the video on YouTube where the MP3 version is embedded:



I am aware that by providing the video for free and putting the music itself out there for sale, but when downloading (and paying) the music from the TuneCore stores, the quality will just be superior to any standard MP3 file.

I have not yet heard back from iTunes - is already almost 2 weeks ago that I signed on to iTunes, but these music companies take a long time... TuneCore mentioned 3-4 weeks.

The single piece "The Snow is Dancing" will then appear in the following stores:
Amazon, iTunes, Napster, emusic, Rhapsody, IMVU, Lala, Shockbound, Amie Street.

The fee for one single is $9.99 for one year is. So in order for this to be viable, I need to generate at least this amount.

I am looking forward to put more music online!
Now I may give DittoMusic a try...

Uploading Debussy's "The Snow is Dancing"

Just tried to upload the MP3 file of Debussy's piano music "The Snow is Dancing" to TuneCore. Choose a very generic "artwork", had no time to work on any other more sophisticated version.

But there was "a problem with the MP3 file": the bitrate is too low. Turns out Tunecore wants MP3 with at least 300 bps. I thought that I had used a variable bitrate, but it seems that the file was at 128 bps.

Not sure if my MP3 encoder supports 300 bps...

Anyway, for iTunes the file must NOT be MP3 or any other compressed version, but pure Wave... that will take a while to upload.

Designing of Cover in TuneCore - Problem

Ran into a few problems: Could not get an image snap shot from my own video - need to use the original capture software to do this. I want to have a snow-fall background, as it is on the YouTube video of my version of "The Snow is Dancing".

Ok, so I decide to use one of the predefined templates on TuneCore. Scroll ahead until page 6 - no page with a snow background. I choose any that does not look too weird. Then: the template shows up again, centered on the page, enlarged. But top and bottom are cut off. I try to use the window slider - the template display keeps flickering, and remains "centred", which means that top and bottomn are cut off, because my XGA screen is too small.

People at TuneCore, have you ever tried your web interface with reaal people? Who came up with the idea to keep the design template always centred, and then have the bottom cut off? Especially because there at the bottom there is a button to press, something "I take this template". But since it keeps just flickering out of view when I scroll, I have no chance of clicking it.

I guess I give up for today... uploading a single does not really work fast.

And anyway, why am I prompted for album artwork, when I just wanted to upload a single track?

TuneCore has no Classical category!

Just as I got ready to try out TuneCore and wanted to upload a file, I noticed that their category system does not have any classical category listed. They have "opera" and "electronic"... so since my music is created with synthesizers, I will choose "Electronic" for Debussy's "The Snow is Dancing"... quite annoying, this lack of an appropriate genre. I may contact them.

Joining iTunes and TuneCore

I realise that I have not done anything to promote my music or get it out into the market. There appears to be a market for music on MP3 players - that is no secred. People are paying in the iTunes store. So why did I not yet pursue this?

No good explanation for this, but I have just neglected the wnole music activities. This will change from now on: a few days ago I filled out a form on iTunes, to become a registered artist. iTunes is a bit strange: they provide a form, but then one has to wait for them to reply back. Have not heard yet anything from them...

In the meantime I did some more search and found TuneCore, where an artist can market music on a whole set of sites. So I signed up! Have no content there yet, but I plan to give it a try. Will probably test also DittoMusic which seems to offer a similar deal. I may compare the various sites - will post the results back here.