Does your band have free music online???

If so, do you use a personal webspace, an indie label, or a dedicated OMD(online music distributor), ???
What are the pros and cons of your setup? ie costs etc,
Would you charge people for downloads in the same way as you would sell an EP/CD?
Give me your thoughts and opinions please...

[craig deadenstereo]

I keep our band's mp3s on my uni web space - we get a 50MB space for my course. If not, I would keep them on the space I get free with my telewest account.

We don't (and wouldn't) charge for the mp3s. Because we are a relativley small band they are a form of promotion for us, since our songs and recordings are pretty damn good. But we don't put stuff up that is currently "released". Once we run out of cds to sell, the songs go up on the site.

Craig

[The Ghost Of Fudge]

we're on peoplesound and vitaminic. by we i mean deadloss.
it costs nothing. in fact peoplesound gave us a hundred quid. which was stupid.

peoplesound have a facility for online ordering, and vitaminic lets you pick which tracks you'd like to be free, and which tracks you'd like to charge for.

Interesting, Peoplesound used to do a promo thing, but someone else on line said they were no longer accepting submissions for a "free" artist page, but now you have to give them money instead, not sure..

Anyone else?? has anyone tried "Purevolume.com"???

[torn]

There are a few band sthat use Purevolume-My Mind's Weapon and Point of Origin spring to mind locally. I've put my old band's EP up as well (Battery Living).

The site has a preview player, so you can stream songs aswell as downloading them which is a decent feature as it means you can check out the song before taking up your own memory and time downloading it. It's free aswell, unless you want to upgrade to an higher level-dunno what extra stuff it offers, must be something.

[Ross]

Personal web space looks more professional.

You have to walk the walk and talk the talk in the music industry. It`s all a big game to be honest. Get in, make your mark and get out whilst the going is good.

Organisation/Professionalism/Hard Work......... all essential to succeed.

[ghost]

I agree I'd prefer to have my mp3s on my own server, but for the moment Soundclick.com does the business for hosting audio. I sell the CDs direct through my site using paypal. Seems to work ok.

Originally posted by Ross:
Personal web space looks more professional.

So why would "Further Seems Forever" and "The Starting Line" use purevolume.com?

if you can get a free website that can be a bit better, although most limit the size and type of file that you can upload. i think most providers give you a wee webspace to use with your account. i have one for my freeserve one which i use for sidca etc. mind learning to build websites was very hit and miss- oh the mp3 files not there? what the fuck does that mean!

takes a while but i think your own site is better, mind you fucked if i know how to make streaming audio from me diy site, i can make short bursts of noise and abusive language appear though.

[Stephen]

Originally posted by Bob:
So why would "Further Seems Forever" and "The Starting Line" use purevolume.com?

cause they have made it and and are are just tryin to get their music out to as many people as possible I imagine