Comments on: How to freely distribute my music online

Question: How to freely distribute my music online

saul wright — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:25:06 -0800

So I basically just want to give out some of my music for free online.

What's the best way? Most of my friends are on facebook but it seems like myspace is more suited to this sort of thing. Is there another website I should use? I basically just want to upload mp3s and have people be able to download them. If myspace is the way to go, can anyone recommend some super clean and simple layouts? I really just want a little text and the mp3s for download. Also, is there a limit to how many songs you can put for download on your myspace?

By: dryad

dryad — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:38:41 -0800

Last.fm has this capability. I use it as a listener, but a friend of mine is a musician and just recently put up a bunch of tracks for download and streaming, and he has gotten a lot of positive feedback already.

Good luck!

By: rhizome

rhizome — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:41:56 -0800

Soundcloud and Bandcamp, both .com.

By: jmnugent

jmnugent — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:47:31 -0800

IANAM (I Am Not A Musician) but if it was me.... I'd start seeding a torrent, and also post to Metafilter Music ( http://music.metafilter.com/ ) Additionally, i'd look for some music review blogs that focus on the genre you fall into - and send them the torrent link. Websites like DIGG and Reddit have "music" sub-pages. Post there.

By: CRM114

CRM114 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:55:07 -0800

Thesixtyone.com, my friend.

By: niles

niles — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:03:25 -0800

Facebook can definitely do the myspace-esque band thing with the Pages app, complete with music player. The Resources tab on my link has guides to setting up pages, and has a usage scenario for bands.

By: wheat

wheat — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:24:27 -0800

There are lots of options. Reverbnation is nice and integrates nicely with FaceBook. Seconding Soundcloud as well.

By: ragtimepiano

ragtimepiano — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:45:24 -0800

Thanks to your postings, I just signed up with Soundcloud---wonderful! Thanks!

By: substars

substars — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:28:21 -0800

If you're planning on releasing your music under a Creative Commons license of some sort, the Internet Archive will host it, even in lossless format if you want. They have a tool, CcPublisher, that makes it pretty easy.

Alternatively, Virb is pretty cool and is used by by some people I know as a primary band site.

By: saul wright

saul wright — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:13:06 -0800

Thanks all. I checked them all out and Virb seems to be the best. I'll also put some stuff on mefi music. Cheers.

By: huxley

huxley — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:40:53 -0800

Last.fm has a huge user base, if you're trying to reach new listeners.

By: saul wright

saul wright — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:13:48 -0800

Yeah, I'm on last.fm so that was my first instinct but I didn't really like the setup, it was being a bit of a pain in the ass and you can only have one album on there. Thesixtyone.com - you can only start off putting 3 songs on there. and this is mostly just for convenience for my friends to dl my stuff as opposed to reaching more listeners. Here's the site I ended up making if anyone is curious- http://virb.com/jbw