Best site to upload music?

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I hope I’m doing this right, it seemed like the best place to ask this question.

What is your favorite site / method for uploading your music in order to share with others? I have heard lots of things about numerous websites people use to upload their music, but I’d like to get the opinions of people from here. When I first started doing my own thing, I got on board with clyp.it, but after returning there after such an extensive hiatus, I find that they no longer allow uploading for free, which was arguably the greatest thing about it.

I could also return to using my ancient YouTube channel, which then prompts another question in the same line for people who use this method: what is the best software for recording to this end? Personally, all I’d need is a good screen capture program to do what I like with that.

Thank you for your time

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Hey Colin, @hatch890

YouTube is the second Google. It’s great for showing what you can, especially with camera :camera: or screen record (Screenflow) I can recommend.

Bandcamp is more for gaining fans who really want to support buying your stuff. You have there tags too, so people can easily find what they are looking for (like YouTube).

Spotify/AppleMusic for streaming and collecting little money.

The question is what you want to achieve exactly? I personally think the more you spread your music out there, the better the chance you find the right people to achieve your goal.

The only thing that most people don’t understand is consistency. If you put only track a year out, don’t expect it will be well-known. The more music you publish, the more people get interested. Choose your own pace and stick to it. Patience is key.

Kind regards,
Alexey

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Hi,
I agree with Alexey, we need to know our goals, but I think that today it’s hard to know exactly how to use the multitude of tools and websites out there.

There are many possibility today but we can’t follow every ways so I think it’s good to make e plan and research the most suitable tools for us.

There is a very good discussion on how to make a plan

I think that is usefull for many of us
:+1:

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I think you’re right about spreading your music out there to as many places as possible. I do want to add one post script to the discussion on Spotify. I’ve of course heard many arguments/complaints about Spotify and the little money that they pay out for streaming, however, I just finished a course on this subject by Steven Melin, who is a very successful indie film/game composer and has a lot of music on Spotify and Audio Jungle.

He did a comparison between a number of different music streaming sites/services, what they pay for streams or downloads and level of site traffic. What he found was that, although Spotify doesn’t pay out the biggest amount among streaming services, they receive near 40% of all music streaming traffic and therefore actually pay out the biggest amount to artists. He’s reaching around $1000+ total for just Spotify plays, but this of course is because he’s uploaded around 100+ of his tracks, and most are associated with popular games.

His point was that if you can write quality music and write, write, write consistently, putting them on Spotify is a real solid option. BUT, yes, put your out to as many places as possible.

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There are two points that you have said that are important.

First, you need quality tracks. Quality tracks are tracks that are similar to what people hear what they love, and most likely all of them are from people who know what they do aka. professionals or at least a really good level (they have the tools, knowledge, and talent to pull those tracks out.)

Second, the traffic and/or connection to already popular topics (games, tv-shows, movies, featured artists, etc.)

Both things you can only have if you are doing it for years, building connections, building repertoire, building your brand & name in the industry. All of it takes a lot of time and effort. And that’s what most people don’t see first. They only see the “end-result”. Like: “That’s the reference…”. But in my opinion, it’s wrong to see or analyze this way. It’s not what other people achieved and what they say what they think what “possible” is. It’s first truly understanding and being aware of what they actually did to get to where they are today and what they have now.

As well, don’t forget that what they did so far maybe worked out pretty well due to the market situation. It doesn’t mean that someone who starts out today or has those goals will achieve it even with putting in the same or even more work into it, due to the fact that the markets are changing very quickly today. For example: What happens if Spotify goes broke tomorrow? Just hypothetical. And most of your attention was there? You worked for years to achieve what others told you they’ve achieved the last 6 years, and suddenly you see it doesn’t work nearly well for yourself.

First, the attention should be only to your main craft and passion. Building your “character”, like in a video game. And in parallel, you’ll see after a while what platform or service, or library, or website goes into the direction that you like most in terms of ROI. aka. you start focusing even more on that one or two.

But before all that you should and everybody else too, of course, answering the most important question: What do you really want? Do you want to make money by making music? Do you want “fame”?

What I actually mean by that is that people who start out or are about to take the next step in how to make a business in that business are focusing too much on the money game. And that’s why I believe so many are quitting after a while as they look at others what they “promise” them, not really, but that’s what all people see $$$ and after a while realize that they never achieve those numbers or clicks, or views, or whatever. And then they ask why it doesn’t work out. And when you look at it, you quickly see what the issue is: lack of focus, lack of persistence, lack of passion, lack of durability, lack of social interaction, lack of thousands of other components that are required to get to that level everyone wants to “achieve”. Start with that first, and no matter the platform or website or whatever the market is telling you there is, you’ll get it sooner or later with that intention.

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This is a quite interesting article I read today. It’s about artists but I think much of it applies to media composers as well.

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Wow. Yeah! Great stuff. That article is basically the direction I was talking about.

I think one of the most important sentences there is what Jim Carrey has said. People will realize that money is NOT the answer.

Another very important fact is that at least 75% of people don’t live their life with purpose. There are so many times I asked myself that question, and I still ask myself quite often…maybe not every day…but at least x-times a month what I actually did to help and serve others. That’s such a strong question to ask. As if you can’t answer it, you are exactly those 3 out of 4 who don’t have a purpose of life.

The article is brutal. It’s exactly the way what it is about. However, there are so many things inside, you need another article to go into that. Too much stuff to talk about.

What I liked the most is what I have said before. It’s not about music. Music is just a small part of it. It all starts in your head and your inner self. If that is not “tuned” right, you are missing the point. A very big point is “expectations”. I really like that, as I can personally relate to it. It’s not only your personal expectations but as well what others expect from you. And that’s the point where a lot of people die off when doing things they love the most. It takes time to find the right balance to set the expectations just right, so you can progress. But if they are too high or too low, you’ll never be the person you could be. What I have found out for me is that I don’t care anymore what other people expect from me if that doesn’t resonate with what I expect from myself.

Another important point is that the article is not what young talents could understand instantly. You need to go through some phases of life to more or less “get” what Jake has written there. I mean even older people still don’t understand the principles he describes. Like “buying things to impress others”. But that’s what society has taught us from the very beginning. Because we think automatically that if we don’t have something, like a specific car, phone, or even plugin, we are not “worth” it. So to be “worth it”, they suggest us to buy it, so we later understand that we never needed it.

There is a very good documentary on Netflix called “Minimalism - Less is now”. It’s great. And it shows exactly where we as humans are now. I think the greatest thing is to realize that you really don’t need a lot of stuff to be satisfied with your life. And when you have found out what it is, you’ll see that you don’t need “more” to be happy. But again, it all starts inside yourself. That’s what Jim Carrey means: You can’t buy happiness.

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all of them if possible

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Agreed. I often thought that these artists that are successful are great to share how they did it, but there is always a bit of luck, I think, with how they got connections and got into the business. Not to take away from their hard work, but it’s not something the will work for everyone, unfortunately.

For myself, my focus is writing great music. That’s what I love. Making money from doing is just a way to support yourself so that you can spend more time doing it; make it a career. It’s why i don’t write “corporate music.” You could make lots more money doing that, but it’s artistically and musically unsatisfying. That’s why my focus is more on film/TV/game soundtrack; it may be harder to get into, but I can write more in the styles I like.

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I know nothing about luck, only that the more I train the more luck I have! “Ingemar Stenmark”
From a Swedish skiing legend :slight_smile:

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You do what your heart tells you to do. If you are happy doing that, you do that. If you aren’t, you do something else. Very simple. No one decides for you what you need to do in order to be happy doing what they think is right for you. People can give you a direction. But you will always go on your own path.

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There is a great quote from Ed Sheeran. He once said: “Luck is something that happens to you when you are prepared.”

And if we think about it, it’s exactly the way all of these things work. You work every day to improve in something. And somewhere on the way you eventually find people who are interested in what you have. Many people think that only “luck” is responsible for where people are stuck in there lives, but it isn’t. It’s just the circumstances that happened where people are, but it doesn’t say that we can’t control them. If you can control yourself, you can control where you are going.

I think that “luck” in not the right word to choose. It’s more about what you did to get there. Some people do almost nothing to get somewhere. Others are grinding every day to get where they want to be. However, I think it’s far more important to know who you are and what you did and what shaped you when you have arrived at a specific point.

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Got nostalgic reading Ingmar Stenmark. Those countless times our teacher stopped the class and rolled in a TV so we could watch him compete against Tomba. :blush:

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Same here. I guess all Sweden stopped, ha ha :slight_smile:

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luck without dedication and hard work first doesn’t work. You can be talented but if no passion or hard work consists luck will not find you.