LinuxMusicians

Create your BandCamp account

Make a folder in /home/you containing the album .wav files, album and song art, and text files for
your bio, a photo for your bio, and optionally album notes, song notes, credits, and a message to followers.

Atop your BandCamp page, you'll click '+add' to get things started

On the new page, you'll see a place to name your album, and click the 'upload' button on the
album art panel, and use their file browser to reach folder you made, and select the cover graphic.
Size required is square and 1400 x1400 or larger. I re-used my 3000 x 3000 spotify images.

Next, choose to upload a song .wav file. A size limit of 291 meg is in place temporarily,
pending a few sales. Thats close to 27 minutes. Again, an easy browse to the same folder.
You'll see a green progress bar for your upload. This will change to yellow, and say 'processing'.
You will want to fill in each song's title as it uploads, the text box is to the right of the progress panel.

edit: When I had gathered each album's songs into individual folders, I created a folder named 'loaded', and as each song was processed, I moved the .wav file into that folder, reducing confusion as the proccess went forward, with fewer and fewer options to consider. And I kept smplayer handy to refresh my memory and opinions about a sensible order.

Repeat the steps for each song. Then copy/paste your texts into their various boxes.

There is also a banner graphic of a recommended size 975 x 180, that will sit atop your page.
A nice ad for your work. I use inkscape and irfanview to easily combine text over graphics, and resize the results

You can save your work as a draft if not ready to complete the task, but it's good luck to have all these
things at the ready, and finish submitting your album in one go. Because the uploads are already completed,
the submitted album can be previewed right away, and then check it in your web browser.
There is an extension for firefox that puts a volume slider on your BandCam pages:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... e-control/

There is no size limit on the album itself, so the choice is yours to choose how many songs
you want on each album.

Pricing options are also easy to select, with defaults, and you can choose the number of 'free listens'.
I think I chose 300

I also use Distrokid for individual song releases, and after similar sumitting choices,
their process takes several days on their end to complete,
sending your music to a couple dozen shops and streaming sites.

Cheers

And...they have a "replace" button! If that were a mechanical button I'd long ago had it worn out by overuse.

Been listening to (Impostor's) Autumn Shades/Oblivion: I like the dissonance, variety of sounds, and drums holding things together.
The syncopated beats keep the listener engaged, and overall, there is some mystery.
I wonder if you've considered creating a longer suite, by finding ways to tie
the songs together, varying the order, maybe expanding their overall length a bit, and conclude with a unifying beat
with the primary sounds of the songs woven together in a sixth song conclusion? Maybe for the outro,
switch to a quick straight rock beat to lighten the mood?
Just stirring the pot a wii bit

The thing with streaming sites, is you have to trust they are being honest about the view counts. I am sure they are and they would do nothing dodgy to avoid paying money though

glowrak guy wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 4:40 am

Been listening to (Impostor's) Autumn Shades/Oblivion: I like the dissonance, variety of sounds, and drums holding things together.
The syncopated beats keep the listener engaged, and overall, there is some mystery.
I wonder if you've considered creating a longer suite, by finding ways to tie
the songs together, varying the order, maybe expanding their overall length a bit, and conclude with a unifying beat
with the primary sounds of the songs woven together in a sixth song conclusion? Maybe for the outro,
switch to a quick straight rock beat to lighten the mood?
Just stirring the pot a wii bit :wink:

Thanks for listening, and for your ideas. But all those things you mention require planning and thinking which, musically speaking, is beyond my humble abilities. I did carefully think about the ordering of the tracks, and the track currently at the end is a sort of straight rock beat, in comparison, not?

But I'm glad you seem to think it's all too short, and I'll keep your recommendations in mind!

Edit: I made Coconut Street even shorter than it was, by a full 36 seconds by cutting the fadeout which began to annoy me :)

At the moment there's a big question mark over Bandcamp, so I'd suggest not putting all your eggs in one basket - you may find they get broken in the not to distant future

folderol wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 8:15 am

At the moment there's a big question mark over Bandcamp, so I'd suggest not putting all your eggs in one basket - you may find they get broken in the not to distant future :(

From the HN discussion a few days ago, I have these potential alternatives bookmarked, but not yet investigated:

• Qobuz: They seem to have pretty high fees.

• Resonate: Their pricing scheme seems really intriguing.

What is Resonate's streaming quality?
Our current streaming quality is 96 kbps AAC. In the future we intend to offer 128 bits AAC for all users. 256 bits AAC will be available on demand.

Why not to pay for streams.

Best option is to sell from your own website. No third party website taking cuts, no worrying about them selling their start up to asset strippers/speculators/whatever

runiq wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 9:35 am

• Qobuz: They seem to have pretty high fees.

• Resonate: Their pricing scheme seems really intriguing.

Resonate seems almost deceased. I fail to see how Qobuz (which seems to be a subscription based streamer of curated content) is an alternative to Bandcamp.

Largos wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 10:17 am

Best option is to sell from your own website. No third party website taking cuts, no worrying about them selling their start up to asset strippers/speculators/whatever

Then you'd have the complexity (and cost) of promoting your work, something that very few people are any good at.

folderol wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 1:03 pm

Largos wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 10:17 am

Best option is to sell from your own website. No third party website taking cuts, no worrying about them selling their start up to asset strippers/speculators/whatever

Then you'd have the complexity (and cost) of promoting your work, something that very few people are any good at.

Bandcamp doesn't provide that though. It just an online store with a focus. I personally like it because it's one of the rare places that provides FLAC format and I won't pay for mp3. Other than that, there's nothing amazingly special about it.

Largos wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 4:31 pm

Other than that, there's nothing amazingly special about it.

I beg to differ. As long as there seem to be no real alternatives offering the same experience* it apparently is amazingly special.

*Bandcamp is "just a store", sure, but that's exactly what I like about it. As an "artist" I have my own little corner there with my own albums put up for download. And as a fan, I can visit my favorite artists' corners to listen to their albums there, and easily buy a cd or a digital album from them. And neither activity needs a subscription.

Sure I could maybe put my stuff on Soundcloud, but I hate their interface with a passion. It's no joy to look for, and listen to, artists there. (edit: and, subscribe to listen to the full album? wtf?)

Lots of shared hosting now have feature to add an online shop with a installer. If you have a provider that uses the softaculous service, you can install these apps https://www.softaculous.com/apps That's why I say it's nothing amazingly special because it's perfectly possible to set up your own space that does the same thing. It's what artists were starting doing 20 years ago, having their own sites with their own forums and fan communities but that was lost because it's easier to sign up on someone else's site. Then these services like spotify and bandcamp come along that are have no interest in anyone being successful because they operate on small amount of money X lots of people. Their site isn't special and you aren't special on their site but at least it's easy.

Largos wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 11:10 pm

It's what artists were starting doing 20 years ago, having their own sites with their own forums and fan communities but that was lost because it's easier to sign up on someone else's site.

Well, there you have it. I have absolutely no interest in creating and maintaining my own website. I also don't want to shop around on dozens of artist's or label's webshops, each with their own payment systems. Thus, Bandcamp. It's like the indie record store of yore. There's good stuff to be found, but mostly you'll have to find it yourself. Something catches your eye? You can (often) listen to the entire album. Only, in this indie record store, you can also put your own albums up for grabs, no questions asked.

So, yes, Bandcamp does offer something special, in this age where people seem to prefer streaming individual tracks above listening to entire albums. Where they prefer to pay 10 dollars a month for access to curated content instead of buying cd's with the music they love. I don't get it, but I guess I'm just old-fashioned.

There you have it. There's good stuff to be found you but you have to find in amongst the hundreds of thousands of artists who have no interest in doing anything outside the bare minimum. That's hardly a good experience for music fans and for artists it means if you want to have any sort of reach, you have to do a lot outside of bandcamp to direct people to your page.

What are you going to do when bandcamp is no more?