Help me release my music into the wild!
June 4, 2010 5:49 PM Subscribe
I'm a musician. Sometimes this year or next year, I want to release my entire back catalog into the wild, under a Creative Commons license. Please give me your best guessimates for what format I should use and where I should post my songs.
It's a bit of an undertaking, about eight or nine CDs worth of music. I'm going to have to find the masters for all the songs that weren't released on a CD, scan (or find) the cover art for everything that was. It's two or three days worth of work.
The thing that distresses me is that I've done this over and over and over again, since about 1994, starting with RealAudio files and then progressing into higher and higher resolution mp3 files. So I'd like to err on the high bit-rate side and maybe spend a couple of years without having to re-upload the files.
I'd also like to have triple redudancy. I'm going to upload to archive.org. Do you have any other suggestions for stable, well-regarded sites that will allow me to release my works under the CC license?
FLAC? or mp3? or both? Recommended bit rate?
Got any other recommendations or stories?
Thanks so much, and sorry, that's three questions but I don't post here very often, so please cut me some slack :)
It's a bit of an undertaking, about eight or nine CDs worth of music. I'm going to have to find the masters for all the songs that weren't released on a CD, scan (or find) the cover art for everything that was. It's two or three days worth of work.
The thing that distresses me is that I've done this over and over and over again, since about 1994, starting with RealAudio files and then progressing into higher and higher resolution mp3 files. So I'd like to err on the high bit-rate side and maybe spend a couple of years without having to re-upload the files.
I'd also like to have triple redudancy. I'm going to upload to archive.org. Do you have any other suggestions for stable, well-regarded sites that will allow me to release my works under the CC license?
FLAC? or mp3? or both? Recommended bit rate?
Got any other recommendations or stories?
Thanks so much, and sorry, that's three questions but I don't post here very often, so please cut me some slack :)
I'd go V0. If someone wants V2 they can download the FLACs and encode themselves.
(Of course, the reverse is true too. I just prefer V0.) (:
posted by Precision at 6:25 PM on June 4, 2010
(Of course, the reverse is true too. I just prefer V0.) (:
posted by Precision at 6:25 PM on June 4, 2010
A good site to release on would be the Free Music Archive, which is associated with WFMU so you know it's on the level.
posted by the dief at 6:40 PM on June 4, 2010
posted by the dief at 6:40 PM on June 4, 2010
i always recommend bandcamp to anyone looking to distribute their music. it lets folks download in the format of their choice (mp3,flac,ogg,alac,etc), let's you price things however you want (free, set price, minimum price) and has an awesome streaming/embeddable widget.
posted by noloveforned at 7:25 PM on June 4, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by noloveforned at 7:25 PM on June 4, 2010 [1 favorite]
Absolutely encode them as FLAC. The "lossless" part of it is true. Every bit of data in your digital masters will be in the final file. That would be your "archival" standard, so that you don't have to go back to your masters again.
Then, do an mp3 encoding of them. mp3 isn't great, but it's totally ubiquitous at this point. I'd do a medium bitrate encoding here, frankly. People who want the high-quality stuff will download the FLAC.
posted by Netzapper at 8:15 PM on June 4, 2010
Then, do an mp3 encoding of them. mp3 isn't great, but it's totally ubiquitous at this point. I'd do a medium bitrate encoding here, frankly. People who want the high-quality stuff will download the FLAC.
posted by Netzapper at 8:15 PM on June 4, 2010
V0 for regulars and FLAC for Feinschmeckers. It's important that you check and see if your music still sounds good digitally, because the whole iPod-ification of music ruins a lot of music without many people knowing.
posted by blook at 6:38 AM on June 5, 2010
posted by blook at 6:38 AM on June 5, 2010
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Done!
posted by Jairus at 6:07 PM on June 4, 2010 [1 favorite]