I have become involved in recruiting Independent Artists with Original Material for a radio blog called “Open The Door Spotlight“. Produced by Virgina Dupew this show “Spotlights” the artists own original songs for one week and gets them out to new listeners. We are requiring artists to have all original material and to join BandCamp and upload there. Why BandCamp? well for a couple of great reasons (those of you already on BandCamp know all this already).
1. Bandcamp is completely Free.
2. Bandcamp only allows uploads of WAV or AIFF lossless files for best quality. They don’t allow mp3 or other lossy format Uploads.
3. Bandcamp takes care of all download conversion for you and offers multiple formats including lossless (FLAC and ALAC) as well as iTunes etc… default is 320kbps mp3. They also put all the meta data on your downloads so the tracks flow right into iTunes with all the info.
4. BandCamp allows the artist to sell or offer free downloads or name your price….if you have PayPal you link it to your BandCamp account and get paid immediately and directly when you sell. No middle man. (from my own experience BandCamp is the ONLY site I have earned significant sales on).
5. The stats section of BandCamp is superb and very valuable. You can see all you song plays on a daily basis and whether they were complete plays, partial, or skipped + you can see where the listens are coming from + you can track all of your sales and downloads entire history going back years. BandCamp does all the record keeping for you. I have stats now going back almost 4 years.
6. Getting on BandCamp allows “Open The Door” to easily download the highest quality of your audio + your album cover art will be used for the Spotlight image. “Open The Door” will provide a link back to your BandCamp page encouraging people to go there and hear more and get your music!
7. Most importantly BandCamp is about empowering the artist and giving you full control of your audio and sales etc… in a very easy to use and simple platform. BandCamp has no built in social network, no ads or “similar” artists appear on your page and no silly comments or rating function. In other words a no nonsense music hosting platform that pays direct to the artist. BUT the artist is the one who has to do the work of steering people to their BandCamp page.
8. Watch the intro video on the home page and find out more: http://bandcamp.com
9. Last but not least BandCamp has a great Mobile platform so mobile device users can easily access your music with an interface designed for mobile devices.
10. Almost forgot…every time I have had to contact BandCamp I get a real human being responding that I can talk to and that understands me and has helped me to resolve issues (only twice have I ever had a question and both times the response was great).
Cheers, Gil
