TuneCore Message Board

Shout Out to Tunecore Manufacturing - Thanks, Cedar!!

Lisa — Thur, 28 Aug 2008 22:14:57 GMT

I just received my first order from Tunecore manufacturing. I had 100 CDs made, and I am thrilled with the result. I think the quality is great, and I really appreciate Cedar's kindness during the process. He was great to work with on this order.

Forum: General

CD Manufacturing Nightmare

jodru — Thur, 28 Aug 2008 20:57:45 GMT

I just had the worst possible experience with Tunecore manufacturing. Buyer beware. I was drawn in by the rates, which are the best thing going. I'm sure these guys would do a fine job with a 6-month lead time, but if you are in a crunch, do NOT use them. They are not up to the task.

There are warnings everywhere on Tunecore that the biggest holdup is the artwork process. That's right. But it's not because of you. It's because of them.

Their FTP server didn't work. I had to upload everything to mine.

The person assigned to my account was not paying attention. I told him I needed everything fast. He said he'd hurry the process along, but his response time averaged 3 days.

He told me that he was missing the tray card for the CD in the artwork I submitted, 5 days after I submitted it. No problem, he just didn't see it in my server. I re-sent him the link, but at that point, I was pretty uptight about the deadline. I reminded him I was on a tight schedule and begged him to tell me if he needed anything else.

3 days later, I get my proofs with another note asking for more artwork. At this point, my only option is to get them overnighted. But he can't tell me on what day they'll arrive, just that I'll have to pay another $125.

Forget it. Give me my money back, I tell him. This has been a huge nightmare. No problem, he says. We regret the error, but we can't refund $50, because we had to pay for the proofs.

So, I paid $50 for nothing from Tunecore.

B-E-W-A-R-E!!!!

Forum: SUGGESTION BOX: What You Want from TuneCore

Comments Appreciated

Geetarman — Thur, 28 Aug 2008 15:52:20 GMT

Hello,
THE DIRN FOOLS would like to welcome everyone in the TuneCore family to comment and give their valuable insight. We wish you all good luck, much success, and continued happiness through music.

Sincerely, THD

Forum: BULLETIN BOARD: Check Out My Music

looking for bassist and drummer (san diego)

fatlando — Thur, 28 Aug 2008 02:41:28 GMT

hey, fat lando from Hocus. I'm looking for a bassist and drummer, female or male, 21 and older. Hoping to gig in November/December timeframe.

doing original music, i live in the Southern San Diego area.

let me know if you're intrested.

fat lando
619-519-2270
www.myspace.com/hocusmusic

Forum: BULLETIN BOARD: Help Wanted / Help Needed

Track Upload Issue and Naming Issue

superwendel — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:06:16 GMT

Searched through this forum first before posting. For uploading having that problem some users have had in it getting stuck on verifying after it's been uploaded to a 100%. These are wav's and if I hit refresh (as the page suggests) it says the format is wrong. Tried several times, still no luck. I have limited bandwidth so it's kind of an issue for me to keep on trying and trying.

For one of my tracks, the title is "Pulsa diNura" and each time it wants to format it to be as "Pulsa Dinura".

Anyone knows, let me know.

Forum: General

Same artist - different album

HighLiteVibes — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:09:37 GMT

Has anyone ever been in a situation where you release an album through tunecore entering the artist name as one thing e.g. "The Blues Brothers" - and then you release a subsequent album (same artist) with artist name "Blues Brothers" and then the online stores displays these as two separate artists, even though its the same person. Is there anyway you can notify the stores that its the same artist?
-KCL

www.highlitevibes.com

Forum: General

The horror of the ITUNE WAIT

GodChaserzDOTCOM — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:43:15 GMT

So I'm waiting on my new album to appear on Itunes. I've had some real stressful parts of the whole album release process. But the Itunes wait has to be by far the hardest part. Amazon.com, Amie Street, all the other places are up and ready to go. But Good Ol Itunes.

LAWD HAVE MERCY !

just thought Id share. I know somebody out there can relate .

Forum: General

Pre-Track Gaps

ny152 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:27:41 GMT

Hi,

I'm having trouble getting messages to the support@tunecore.com email address, and I've even tried peter@tunecore.com - both bouncing back. My send and receive are fine with respect to all other email communications so I thought I'd come here to ask a question regarding uploading tracks.

Do you incorporate the important pre-track gaps (called PQ-editing) that are set during mastering, eg. the specific running order of the album between tracks that defines the feel of the album when listened to from start to finish?

I know you recommend iTunes for ripping to WAV but, do you know if this important information is included with it, ie - added to the end of the file?

Thanks

Forum: General

Our New Album just hit amazon.com

GodChaserzDOTCOM — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:46:04 GMT

Check it out

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EDXRQQ/ref=dm_sp_alb?ie=UTF8&qid=1219848463&sr=8-3

Forum: BULLETIN BOARD: Check Out My Music

Contract Points to consider

PassiePassion — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:19:12 GMT

Intro

Thanks for setting up this site to give us a chance to earn some money with our music
I am interested to join so i will carefully read the FAQ which i look at like a contract the following week
And i'll put the things that make me doubt up here including my reasons to doubt
Hopefully someone can explain what i inter pit badly
Or try to fix it if they agree on the point that i come up with

I'm a member of the Dutch Musicians Foundation
And they offer us members free legal support to get our contracts screened
I also went to their meeting about contracts and got a lot of pointers to know what to look at

If you want to see the full list check my free download contract checklist at my myspace blog
Or google Checklist For Download Contracts PassiePassion
I don't know if links are allowed so i didn't put my link up

1 -=- See the point at FAQ - Streams

Each time your music streams, you get paid the Streaming Pay Rate for that store.

EXCEPTION:
Some stores let potential customers stream for promotion or as a "free trial."
In those cases, even though your music may stream, you will not get paid.

Thats very dangerous to agree to
Because it means that the shop system can limitless abuse our music at will for their promotional purposes
As artists we can give them a chance to promote because it can be good for us too
BUT there SHOULD be a limit to free use of our music in every contract we sign

Otherwise its like we give our songs away for free
So imo that should be set to a limit
Then the artists know they wont be milked out for free for the year they try to test if this can earn them some money

2 -=- See at FAQ - ITunes

Another point is the amount that the resellers sell our music for
It's crazy to sign a deal where they decide what price your product will sell for
And its untrue as well because i got the contracts for Juno and TrackIt Down too
And they clearly tell you which price your product will be sold for
Thats also necessary otherwise you can't give an accounts example in the contract
Amounts can vary but there should always be a limit for the artist to know
Contracts should be 2 sided
This is only taking care of the retailer it's business and guaranties without looking at guaranties for the artists

EXCEPTIONS: iTunes (and all other digital retailers, for that matter) reserves the right to sell music and/or music videos any way they want and at any price they want. When your songs or albums or music videos sell, you will always receive the required amount, but iTunes can sell your music or video for a penny, a million dollars or anything in between. For music, iTunes reserves the right to make a song "purchasable only with the album." That is, no button would be placed next to the song itself, no option to download it on its own would be available to the iTunes customer. iTunes does this solely at their own discretion. Sometimes they do it to long songs (presumably because a 73-minute song would be too much of a bargain for just $0.99, since that's a whole album's worth of music on a single song). Sometimes they do it to very short songs (presumably because $0.99 is too much for a 10-second song). Sometimes they simply adjust the price.

I'll do the worst case example for you here

They sell it for 15 cents per song and deduct their expenses ,because they make sure they always get payed
So 15 cents minus 10 cents expenses
You will get 60% from the 5 cents left and you can't stop them to do this because you signed for it

Thats not a contract that is balanced out well
Without us giving them our music they can't earn a cent
So WE make it possible for them to earn money
YET we take all the weight of the risk

So imho that should also be set at a certain minimum level

2b -=- And my question would be

Are we allowed to cancel our contract with Tunecore if we see that our songs are not for sale by track
I would not want to force my possible customers to buy an album just because they like a certain song
So if this would happen then i would not want to host my music with that retailer
And certainly not pay for that if i wont want to use it

I ask this because the contract says its up to them
So you might start with 2 singles but add on more songs
And then at once the retailer can change the way they offer our music
So we can't know before we sign here at Tunecore

An idea to perhaps get implemented in the future

It would be very nice if we could get a player to embed to our MySpace page as an example
Then we got a way to promote our own sales at our musician accounts
Just like Beatport has their player
I bet this will make it a lot easier to promote our selfs and generate more sales

Best would be a Tunecore player so customers can chose between the different retailers
And Tunecore gets their promotion too that way ;wink;

Another idea GROUP accounts at Tunecore

I also do rebuilds for fellow musicians from all over the world
Since i personally don't know these persons sometimes trust is a factor
We don't know each other
So it would be great if there would be a way for various band members to be able to see how much got sold
Kinda like an AUDIT check which you should get yearly at a real record label
That way other band members can see how much was sold

Payments don't have to be split up as thats too much work for Tunecore
But perhaps a way so all band members can login to see the song statistics
That would be a wicked option for bands and Vs artists who work together with other musicians

EDIT

@ pongamoosic

Yeah off course it IS a good chance to sell and get known
But i have various offers from net labels and i bet some others here have offers too
The reason i didn't sign with them yet is because most have no promotional power
So then you might as well come and do it here

At least thats why i'm looking at Tunecore
I have a couple of albums and have been thinking about setting up my own label
Even got an offer from a distributor to join
Then i can sell at 300 different resellers
But i do need to setup a legal Internet label else i can't deal with the distributor directly
So Tunecore is a gods gift in that mater

I'm just trying to cut off the sharp edges of the contract
Tunecore does not make these rules the retailers do
But Tunecore could think about these suggestions and talk about it with their retailers
Just trying to make things better not beating down Tunecore ;wink;

Forum: SUGGESTION BOX: What You Want from TuneCore

looking for band.....

rocker5318 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:21:41 GMT

Hey everyone!

Ive been looking for a band in the DC area around loudon county. I'm 14 if that makes a difference. I play drums and both rythem and lead guitar. I can help writing songs and im very interested in recording and getting a record deal. I can come to practices(times and days depend on distance from where I live) once a week. Let me know if you need me; I wont let you down.

Forum: BULLETIN BOARD: Help Wanted / Help Needed

What's up with Lala?

pongamoosic — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:47:22 GMT

My music has been `live' on Lala.com for a couple of months. I have played (previewed) all of the tracks, and I know others have as well (friends). Lala still shows ZERO PLAYS FOR EVERY SONG. What's up with that?!?!?!

Since they also pay streaming royalties, I'm starting to think that they're not tracking and reporting properly!

Has anyone else noticed this with their tracks?

Forum: General

Check my band's music.

Nuzella — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:08:55 GMT

Yo,
check out my band's music at www.myspace.com/nuzella or www.reverbnation.com/nuzella

Forum: BULLETIN BOARD: Check Out My Music

Pirates rock! New rock opera in Celtic punk, folk, and hard rock style

scottmoehring — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:00:58 GMT

After 2-1/2 years in production, our pirate rock opera is ready. "The Tragedy of Admiral King" is over an hour long and features our regular lineup of bass, guitar, drums and mandolin, plus cello, accordion, fife & drum, tin whistle - 25 performers in all. Completely self-produced, it's the story of guys who become pirates in the late 1700s and has pubs, ships, and battles at sea. It's a blend of Celtic punk, folk and hard rock. Check it out at either iTunes or at our band sites, and thanks for listening.

http://www.thefedoras.net
http://www.myspace.com/hicsuntdracones

The Fedoras
Ben, Tim, Jacob, and Scott

Forum: BULLETIN BOARD: Check Out My Music

A Few Kudoz!

Relaxing_Piano — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:47:21 GMT

I have to give a few Kudoz to Tunecore. Another "independent artist distributor" that I have some music up on has still not paid any of the artists for the month of August. I don't feel is appropriate to specifically name here on Tunecore's site. But after waiting and waiting, and finally writing to the customer support, I was told it may be the first week or two of September before we see any updated sales figures. Kind of makes me a little more than nervous on this.

But the Kudoz to Tunecore is that they do pay regularly and they try to communicate when things are not going as planned. So thank you Tunecore!

And while I'm at it, I did a comparrison between these two distributors last night and the graph looks much prettier for Tunecore results than the other distributor. Tunecore continues to rise while the other continues to decrease! Way to go Tunecore!

Forum: General